BETWEEN FLESH AND DIVINE

As some fellow reviewers have stated before me, 'Between Flesh and Divine' is a masterpiece of the prog genre, as well as Asia Minor's top achievement. This album is one of the best things that came out of France (though 3 quarters of the band were actually Turkish) in the symphonic prog area. As quartet now, the fourth member Robert Kempler handled the duties of bass player and keyboardist, which gave the band the opportunity to expand their sonic potential with a more prominent addition of synthesizers, organ, pianos, and even occasional layers of mellotron - all this in 1980! Of course, the electric lead guitar and the flute are still the major features in the instrumental passages, being in charge of the solos and the main melodic lines. Beltrami's drumming is still as polished and energetic as on the band's debut album, displaying his jazzy vein under the guise of a rock- oriented attitude. The sound production is more refined, which makes every instrument show itself clearly amidst the band's overall sound. The contrast between the strong passages and the soft ones is handled more naturally, which allows the band to go deeper into their Camel-esque explorations, without letting go of their penchant for Asian-based exotic textures. The repertoire has a somewhat accentuated tendecy towards the creation of serene ambiences, locating the rockier passages in the shape of gently incerpted interludes or preambles. Tracks 1, 2 and 4 are the best examples of this clever arrangement strategy, and may I add that I consider them their best tracks ever, specially 'Dedicace', which is catchy, yet keeping a typically progressive sophistication. 'Nightwind' kicks off on a vibrant ethnic mood, ultimately leading to a main body set on the standard of spacey-driven symphonic rock, not unlike Pulsar or "Moon Madness"-era Camel. 'Northern Lights' states a more pronunced atmosphere of introspection, generally speaking, while the aforementioned 'Dedicace' brings a solid dynamics that fuses the heritages of Pulsar, Focus and Pink Floyd in a sort of way that only teh guys from Asia Minor can. 'Boundless' is a beautiful ballad, a not too long passage of melancholy. That same melancholy resurfaces in a more eerie context during the almost 8 minutes of 'Lost in a Dream Yell': the intensity incarnated in the extended flute solo is like an evocative dream made of musical matter. You have hear it to believe it... It is long but never tiring, it bears a free-flight attitude yet it never gets meandering; the eerie keyboard layers sustain the overall mood quite effectively, with the guitar arpeggios and moderately energetic drumming filling the source of tightness. Finally, 'Dreadful Memories' is nothing but a jam construed from a simple chord progression on guitar, with the bass and drums following, and an increasing number of keyboard layers subtly being summoned in: its abrupt ending makes it the perfect coda for a perfect album. I just wish it wasn't so short, or at least, that the album as a whole would last a bit longer thatn it actually does. It wouldn't take long before the bloody blade of 'musical differences' beheaded Asia Minor's career, while they were preparing material for a following album that was never to be.