THE WINGS OF REVELATION

Janos Varga Project is a project established by who else, Janos Varga, the talented guitarist of Hungarian Prog legends East.In late-90's, while East were put somewhat on ice, Varga decided to form his own band with bandmate Istvan Kiraly on drums, along with keyboardist Zoltan Lengyel from After Crying.The trio recorded their debut ''The Wings of Revelation I'' at the Zafir Studios and released it in 2000 on Periferic Records.

Apart from the guitar section, Varga is also responsible from many of the keyboard parts of the album, leaving the place for the piano parts and synth solos to Lengyel.What was more or less known from EAST is easily recognizable on Janos Varga Project.Varga is an extremely gifted guitarist with a great, personal and ultra-flexible style, which allows him to perform a wide range of different styles.The pieces of this album are quite short and have some sort of resemblances with EAST's sound, albeit more modern and all instrumental.Plenty of them have lots of Space and Symphonic Rock tendencies akin to Varga's first group with a huge room for atmospheric synthesizer flights and a delicate and more melodic style of guitar approach.Some others though are on the Fusion side of Progressive Rock with nice piano solos, more passionate keyboard themes and a heavier guitar style.The highlghts of the album include Varga's impressive and sometimes technical guitar solos and some quite spacey and grandiose soundscapes created by this Hungarian trio.It is a nice surprise to realize that Varga is completely up-to-date with the prog activity, producing a very fresh album with a fantastic production.

Really cool release by the mastermind behind East.Far from any narcistic mood, ''The Wings of Revelation I'' is a very balanced instrumental Prog album with some very interesting ideas and accomplished performances.Strongly recommended...3.5 stars.