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Phideaux - Chupacabras CD (album) cover

CHUPACABRAS

Phideaux

 

Crossover Prog

3.85 | 302 ratings

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apps79
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator
3 stars Phideaux Xavier was born and grew up in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, and was a member of several bands as a youngster, before launching his solo album ''Friction'' in 1992, distributed in a limited number of copies.At the dawn of the millenium he started taking his music more seriously, releasing the more ambitious works ''Fiendish'' (2002) and ''Ghost Story'' (2003), the later showing some evident prog leanings and featuring a smaller and more easy-working line-up.His first trully Prog album though was offered in 2005, entitled ''Chupacabras'' and released privately on Bloodfish.

There is a first attempt by Phideaux here to compose a long and compelling epic, which along the opening intro ''Okay'' make up for some fantastic 23 minutes of music.This is a beautiful track, passing through several segments and offering smooth atmospheres, floating melodies and more aggressive moments.Phideaux delivers excellent modern Prog with plenty of shifting moods, going through more vocal-led and psychedelic moments to powerful and intricate instrumental themes of great quality.Maybe there are too much vocal work at moments and there is also a questionable Celtic-influnced part at the end of the track, however there is too much going on in this composition that will satisfy any lover of intricate and atmospheric Progressive Rock.The rest of the album contains another six vocal and instrumental pieces, which are not equally good, but have plenty of nice moments.The main influence seems to be PINK FLOYD (as it has been throughout Phideaux'es career) with strong doses of PORCUPINE TREE and even TALK TALK and DEPECHE MODE, while Phideaux & co. explore many different terittories with success, like Space Rock with hypnotic textures, aggresive Heavy Prog with crunchy guitars or instrumental Psychedelic Rock with background synths and distorted vocals.

This would be only the start for Phideaux Xavier for an impressive career.There are many good reasons to purchase this lovely modern Prog album, the most important being the 20-min. self-titled epic, which has tons of great moments.Strongly recommended...3.5 stars.

apps79 | 3/5 |

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