SAMSARA

This is a strange animal to review, as it has a lot going for it and some evident negatives as well and one seems to cancel the other out each time your just about to make a decision. Let's get the plusses out of the way first; This opus is definitely in the Marillion-IQ- Pendragon universe with some fairly decent singing and quite good instrumental prowess. The keyboard player, Manuel Mas is a notch above the usual tinny keyboard patch mongers associated with Neo-Prog. The bassist and drummer are also a slight notch ahead of the game. The acoustic and Spanish guitar is often exquisite but Antonio Valente's electric style, tone and technique just doesn't push my rather easy buttons. It's too often sloppy and plodding to the point of distraction and way to obvious at other times. Someone like Musical Witchcraft's Zsolt Vamos would be the ideal candidate to set some blazzing fire to these pretty decent songs. The opening instrumental is a tasty entrance into their music. As the second track "Genesis" (ouch!) develops, my anti-guitar rants becomes rather self evident, simply not the right technique (Sorry, Antonio!). Just as the sour feelings start settling in , the band does good with "Lady Time" to "Psychodrama" , a 30 minute stretch that erases the previous bad taste. The best way to rate this is as follows: a decent debut effort by some talented musicians , whose second offering (if ever) should take them into the more serious level of progdom, as long as the get a more focused effort on lead guitar (which is often Neo's greatest asset). Mucha suerte, caballeros! 3 tapas

Numen came together in Alicante, Spain around 1992 as a quartet, comprised of Víctor Arques on vocals/bass, Manuel Mas on keyboards, Antonio Valiente on guitar and Gaspar Martinez on drums.Four years later Arques gave up on the vocal parts due to the arrival of lead singer Cesar Alcaraz.From this point on the band started working on a spiritual project called ''Samsara'' and during the recordings the band was surrounded by guest musicians on flute, sax, violin, slide guitar and backing voices.The final result was launched in 1998 on the Sacramento label.

Numen was definitely an acquired taste of a Neo Prog band at the time, because they did not sound like any other act within the genre's borders.They surely had the edge, power and melody, that characterized all the groups of the style, yet they supported their more song-oriented material with calm instrumental soundscapes, heavily relying on symphonic orchestrations with piano, flute, acoustic guitars and keyboards.They sounded pretty talented though and their music was somewhere between COLLAGE and JADIS, because the keyboard parts sound very symphonic, while the guitar moves have this Gary Chandler-like melodic efficiency.They tend to get smoother or more lyrical than needed at moments and this appears to be the album's only major crutch, otherwise the compositions are very polished, lush and fairly symphonic with some CAMEL influences.Plenty of dramatic overtones, decent English vocals and some FLOYD-ian vibes are also among the album's elements with Italians EZRA WINSTON maybe being a good comparison at the more vintage moments or darker textures.The tracks are quite long with nice instrumental work and some lovely melodies and solos, this is not extremely well-crafted or even surprising material by any means, but the final result is a welcome entry in the list of more recent Neo/Symphonic Prog bands.

Melodic, smooth Symphonic Rock from the Iberian lands.Everything works nice and clean in here, but the killer moments are rather absent.Still this comes warmly recommended.