AIRE

Nexus caught my ear due to the tremendous keyboard work of Lalo Huber. At times, I hear elements of Keith Emerson, Yuka Funakoshi (of Yuka & Chronoship), Rick Wakeman, and even Eddie Jobson. The albums "Metanoia" and "En El Comienzo del Topos Uranos" are loaded with bombastic progressive keyboard passages -- the former having some vocals in Spanish, and the latter, no vocals at all.

"Aire", however, is more laid back and vocal-centric than those albums. If you don't like hearing vocals in non-English, you might hate this album. I'm on the fence. Many of the vocals and lyrics seem to be rooted in traditional Argentinian songs, but set in a progressive music backdrop. The vocal performance is nice enough -- it is not overly accented, affectual, gospelly, screamy, or otherwise overdone. It is simply nice, melodic vocals. At times, I am reminded of the vocal performances of the Polish band Lizard (prior to the album "Master & M"), which are sung in Polish, but in such a way that they're not grating on my nerves.

And while there are some sensational proggy music bits, notably track 1 (which has some nice keyboard-driven symphonic prog madness), and track 5 (which seems to be unsure whether to settle into 5/4 or 6/4 time signature), for the most part, I would call this a vocal-centric album.

If you're not into that, flail you're arms above your head while you run screaming from the room -- this albums not for you. Me? I'm OK with it. Just OK.