COMING THROUGH

Even if about half of the Spock's Beard are playing in this album, this hasn't anything to do with their music. What happened is that Ryo Okumoto is free to express his music and this is very impressive even if "colder" than the usual Spock's Beard material.

The first track opens with a movie-sountrack-like orchestral section (performed by keyboards) that after a couple of minutes turns to funky-jazz, in a word: FUSION.

The second track is not instrumental and is a bit closer to Spock's Beard even if the funky element is still more than present, specially in the bass line. A very good song on which every instrument have its room. On the final part it turns to rock with a great guitar solo and the tempo doubled by drums and bass.

A choir opens "Slipping Down". This song could have been played by David Gilmour on About Face, as it's more or less that kind of funky-rock of which Blue Light is made of, and this is not a bad thing, specially in the short organ solo. Suggested for a travel by car.

Maybe Ryo had the same thought when he entitled the track 4 "Highway Roller". This is pure funky. Just a little too hard for a 70s disco. However this seems to come directly from the 70s.

Back to fusion with Free Fall. A bit more oriented to the jazz side than the funky. An excellent track specially from a technical point of view.

"Coming Through" is a slow melodic song, maybe too mellow but some passages are very interesting. So mellow but not trivial.

The longest track (about 19 minutes) is "Close Enough".. Let's say that it's close enough to Spock's Beard and is probably the only real progressive track of the album. The singing has something of Greg Lake, so it's probably not a coincidence if the organ has an Emerson sound. This is in any case a complex track with many different parts and moments.

The closing track is a piano-based short suite somewhere between classical and new age. music.

It's an highly enjoyable album, well played and with some interesting ideas. Between 3 and 4 stars, I'm rounding to 4 as a price to his career.