THE SHELTERING SEA

Stylish symphonic prog!

This is the third and probably the last album from this Italian 90's prog band. I have not heard the previous albums but after listenning to this one I think I would like to get those too. It might though not be so easy but if I stumble across to them I'll grab immediately! After some orientation and as the album got going I started to like the music a lot. This must be just one of those hated Neo prog albums but as it is well crafted and keeps your interest untill the very end and gets all the time better I am not ashamed to say that this is good music! You can hear influences from Marillion strongly and the singing of Fish has affected the vocalist greately. But this is not a copy of anything. There is a idea of it's own in the music. I would recommend this to any prog collection!

Fancyfluid needed 3 years to come with a third release and aswll their swansong. Released in summer of 1995 on same Musea records, The sheltering sea is considered by many their best album from all 3. At some point I'm agree, they manage to come with the almost perfect arrangements on this one, and when all seams to work pretty well they disbanded soon after. The most mature work in manner of compositions, more complex and well performed, everything is well done here, the pieces are well structured, and with all that the band is very very unknown to larger ublec. To me they are better and more sincer then many neo prog bands well known today. The arrangements ashow a great contribution to each meneber, the guitar is more proeminent but aswell th vocal passages are more delicate and filled with intense jaw droppin arrangements. Moonclimbing is one of the pieces that why I love progressive rock music, is so well performed and has some very intristing and original structure that for the listner is a real treat, excellent pieces, 5 stars for this one, the next one Maelstrom is another worthy track with complicated moves and superb song writting. As a whole this must be their breakthrough to larger public but seams even with this album they remeian widly unknown even to italian scen, not to mention to prog rock in general.Nice symphonic arrangements, some brilliant keybords passages makes from this third album a fairly good aquistion, all 3 are good but this one is their best. 3s tars , maybe 3.5 a decent and good album all the way. All 3 albums are available at Musea records, do't hesitate to take some spins, to me thay were a pleasent surprise.

In "THE SHELTERING SEA" the Italian band FANCYFLUID bring to us a neo-prog which in the great parts reminds me MARILLION like in track 3 "Achab", track 4 " Over the borderline ( in vocal as in instrumental parts ) and in some other tracks , they give to the listener a clear impression of an approximation with the symphonic prog of the 70's, like in track 6 "Maelstrom" that seems to me a GENESIS explicit influence... In one or other form ( in spite not can be considerate a masterpiece) the music is very enjoyable with a few weak or boring moments ! My rate is 3 stars !!!