JURASSIC SHIFT

This is one of the best Ozric Tentacles' albums. The music style is very hard to categorize: it is a brilliant mix of progressive space rock, hard rock, fusion, techno, New Age with TONS of state-of-the-art keyboards. ALL the instruments steal the show. The VERY varied, atmospheric, weird and colorful keyboards, combined with the incisive hard rock guitar a la Steve Hillage create absolutely "out of this world" dynamic spacescapes. Easily comparable to the Gong space-era stuff, "Jurassic Shift" however has more crystal clear textures with ultra modern keyboards. The drums and bass are NEVER bland nor repetitive; they are VERY elaborated and clearly contribute to enhance this extremely complex music. There are many Middle Eastern music influences, so that the ultra modern textures constantly flirt with the more traditional music, mostly produced with the help of advanced keyboards technology and exotic percussions. The album contains peaceful and relaxing bits including delicate flutes. One clearly finds a little Frank Zappa's influence of the 80's, especially on the guitar and drums styles, like in many bits of the tracks "Jurassic shift", "Pteranodon" and "Vita Voom". If you like the Gong of the space-era (before 1975), Frank Zappa's guitar & drums of the 80's and the Steve Hillage's Green album, then this record is definitely for you!

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!