DANZA URBANA

A very lazy comparison of this band would an occasionally spacier sounding E.L.P with added fusion elements, but that would be underselling them a lot. It lacks the truly bombastic elements of the above mentioned band, and there's a jazzy looseness to parts of the playing that makes it stand on it's own. It also reminds me in a few places of the Pierre Moerlin's Gong too.

I'll get my slight grumbles out of the way first! The album production is perhaps a little too pristine and clean sounding, as to me it highlights how average some of the digital keyboards/synths that band uses sound. I found this quite distracting on some parts of this album, but not enough to dismiss it altogether. There's also a few brief sections that are a little underwritten or underdeveloped, leading to a bit too much repetition of some themes. This again is only a minor complaint, because the majority of the album is of a high quality.

Looking over the contents, the title track has some addictive spacey solos, but a truly horrible cheesy middle section that sounds like a fair/circus ride that makes me cringe. It's probably meant to me amusing and comical, but to me it really almost ruins the good stuff on the rest of the track.

`Continiuum' has similar spacey solos in amongst the electric piano sections, and the Mellotron sound that shows up sounds much better than many of the others synth sounds on this album. Great varied drum patterns that speeds up and slows down the music is another highlight of this one. Short little number at just over three minutes, but not too bad at all.

`Clarosecuro' is a slightly darker track, though some of the keyboard themes repeat a little too often. Very mysterious second half that builds nicely before those repeated keyboard sections again. This reminds me most of Gong, no bad things at all.

Fourth track `Convergentes', a wonderful piano-dominated track with some very fusion- heavy sounding electric guitar solos. A floating synth solo near the end reminds me slightly of the more restrained Ozric Tentacles moments. Probably my favourite on the album!

Very laid back and jazzy piano on `Falsa Dictomia', this track slowly builds in urgency throughout the second half. Great track, and gets your head nodding along very quickly!

`Intersections' is another joyful sounding piano-led track, if a little simplistic and repetitive. Has a few frantic E.L.P style moments in the second half.

`Concertino' is severely let down once again by those average, hollow sounding digital keyboards/synths, that make the grander moments the track aims for sound very weak and thin. Some great ideas though.

`Danza Urbana' gets better with every listen. The three band members are all very proficient players, and show so much potential. I truly hope this won't be their only album, the prog field has numerous `one hit wonder' bands that made only one album and vanished. These guys are too good for that to happen. They also have a live DVD that I'm very keen to check out and see them in action!

Perfect undemanding late-night prog played with skill and passion!

I had to give it a 3 star rating, but it's really 3 and a half!

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