COMPLEX COMBAT

Love the title they chose for this one because it does describe the music very well. For this their second recording they have added a real drummer in Daniel Jeand'heur from ONE SHOT. I'm a real fan of this talented drummer and was excited when I heard the news he was going to play on this album. He does not disappoint in the least. Kenichi Oguchi from KENSO guests on synths for 2 tracks. This is an album not unlike a UNIVERS ZERO record where you really have to give it your full attention or forget it. This is not good background music. I really felt that this album had more in common with UNIVERS ZERO and PRESENT than a lot of Zeuhl bands i have heard. This is intricate, dark and complex.

"Double Army" opens with odd-metered drumming and random keys before an outbreak of guitar. It's 2 minutes before we get a real melody, and it's slow paced. Scorching guitar breaks out as drums pound out intricate patterns.This is great ! Lots of keys and organ. More ripping guitar comes and goes until we get a calm after 8 minutes of piano and drums.The guitar breaks that up 10 minutes in as the sound becomes very intense. "Theatre Anatomy" opens with slowly played piano as we can hear guys coughing over and over. This becomes dark and tense with organ and keys as the guitar offers up angular sounds. Complex not unlike chamber music but electric with all these intricate sounds coming and going. Dark sounding organ before 8 minutes also comes and goes.

"Mole's Egg" opens with organ and drums before guitar comes in with attitude. Check out the synth solo 1 1/2 minutes in by Oguchi. Nice. It's followed up with a blistering guitar solo. Keys and angular guitar 3 minutes in. Some powerful organ comes and goes. Pounding drums after 6 minutes. Check out the guitar after 7 minutes to end it. "Ozy" is dark and heavy to start with. I love listening to the drums here as the angular guitar grinds and scrapes away. Another guest synth solo 4 1/2 minutes in and after 6 minutes. Complex combat aptly describes the rest of the song. "Logos" opens with powerful organ as drums burst upon the scene. It becomes very intense 1 1/2 minutes in. This is all about the drums and organ. The drumming before 6 minutes is outstanding. So much going on during this track.

4.5 stars.This really blew me away. Almost 5 stars in my opinion.The complexity, darkness and drum work are mind-boggling.

Yoshiyuki Nakajima's brilliant and refined keyboard sounds can lead all of other instruments and listeners into the darkness.

A keen hit of his piano opens the curtain of the AMYGDALA's Complex Combat show. Over 45 minutes you cannot breathe well, and your brain will be broken and melted down by lacking of oxygen and high fever of your passion. As above mentioned, the star of the show is Yoshiyuki, a keyboardist and a bassist. That is, he can play most of AMYGDALA's important roles. He writes all tracks and scripts, plays as not only the the leading actor but another supporting one. With hearing me saying that, you may assume that he should have the show all to himself... No! The important point is that two (plus one) other supporting member, a speedy and sharp guitarist Yoshihiro Yamaji, a strict and steady but much flexible drummer Daniel Jeand'heur, and a terrific KENSO's synth player Ken'ichi Oguchi (track 3 and 4) as a special guest. Such characteristic players can play together without blurring. Can you feel what a wonderful show this be? Oh yes, I could shout so in spite of myself hahhaha...

From start to finish, around the show is dark atmosphere. Not fuzzy or cloudy, but clearly and spiritually dark atmosphere, on it. The act one Double Army is a 12 minute scene without letting us feel the length. Absolutely dangerous keyboard and earachy guitar sounds with drums aggressively flunged can heat our mind and smash our brain to pieces. The sharp-edged darkness and painful killa flavour can remind us the sounds of King Crimson in the Starless And Bible Black era. I'm sure their play and stage should be with full of passion and full of coolness.

After the first act, we should be deeply sunk with the next one, without any short breath and teardrops. This Theatre Anatomy is a surrealistic pillow. Some dry coughs should mean what? The deeper we go backstage or inside of the theatre, the dustier the dressing rooms may be...? Very mysterious and spiritual world we can feel. The strings sounds in the middle part can make the backstage air itself more risky and more dangerous. Where will we go from now? I dunno, I'll never know!

Wow, we should be surprised at a Mole's Egg in the deeply underground theatre. What do this close-to-the-cliff keyboard shouts express? Should it show a mole baby born from the egg? How terribly the shouts be growling! It might kill us at a glance...how fearful! The scene is finished with heartbeat-confusing guitar squeaks. At last, a terrible beast has come here!

Ozy we can find from the title some mysterious stuffs in the stage and the scene. More improvised and more let-us-crazy style the actors can have and give to us. The magical world occupied with devils should get darker and more despaired, as the track be, I always feel. But not always there are killer sounds only but calm and solemn ones sometimes, though the result be same...dark and dangerous. This song and scene is the most improvised and wonderful one in this album and this show I consider.

The last scene Logos gets started with more rigorous and tougher sounds of keyboards and guitars. Well we are remarkably amazed at the star Yoshiyuki and the keyboard plays shining and getting sharper. Although the other instruments can make such an effort - the guitars are loud and impressive, and the drum and percussion are very strict and very serious - as hard as the star keyboard, they should be hidden behind the star player! The leading actor can play his role so gracefully but much violently. THIS IS AMYGDALA SHOW, YOU, BURN IT INTO YOUR EYES AND BRAIN OVER!

Sorry but I can't say anymore. Huh, I'm comfortably tired. And this show's highly recommended naturally!

P.S. This album was recommended to me by John Davie aka sinkadotentree. Thanks John!

Berserk fusion - Buffalo roller-coaster

Have you ever heard an album that quite literally felt like a fight scene? The music on Complex Combat truly sounds like that - like being kicked around with different instruments all according to the flow of the individual track. Finishing this, is like having fought a couple of 10 minute rounds with Mike Tyson and a big angry anaconda.

Or maybe this is the secret album by the Schulman brothers - once cooked up during a feverish nightmare where the brothers had chewed on a couple of kilos of magic mushroom - for then to be attacked by an instant lust - an urge to record a twisted take on music with loads of unimaginable ingredients. One thing is for damn sure: Complex Combat has got one of the most action packed schedules, and much like the name suggests, here we are dealing with music that both roars, bitch- slaps and just gets profoundly lost in murky waters of alternating time-signatures and other shape- shifting sonic robes. This is beyond complex, but it doesn't feel academic or snobbish. It feels raw and untamed.

I guess you could call it avant guarde Zeuhl - or maybe avant fusion, but instead of going off in some obscure direction with untied hands - free to do whatever, here you get the impression that everything is highly orchestrated and planned out. It is rather strange now that I think of it, - mostly because it feels so out there and unrestrained. The first cut here actually sounds like 4 different tracks glued together to make up some weird sounding cockentrice. Attacking fusioneros drumming, lurking creeping organs - and erratic piano gulps that conjure up images of a spastic coffee fiend maniacally jumping on the keys.

BUT - once you get past the overwhelming first hand impression, the music suddenly starts to make sense, even if that probably is the wrong word for it. You hear patterns that weren't there to begin with - sounds and tempo-shifts that all of a sudden complement each other, and by golly if you don't hear something akin to a distinct concord in all of this mad contention. The pieces of the puzzle were not meant to fit in a regular way - what you really needed to do was to change your initial approach, and start gluing stuff together arbitrarily and waywardly - throwing all kinds of loose ends on the table and just casually mix it up shake it up and sit back, enjoy the tumbling ride of the buffalo roller-coaster.

Though we're dealing with a strange hybrid here, the everyday progger with a penchant for simple things like moogs and metal - will bizarrely also find something of interest in Complex Combat. Mole's Egg (Gotta love a name like that eh?) features some alluring synthesizers and if I didn't know any better, I'd say that there was a certain loose and billowing Canterbury touch going on, though that is probably pushing it a bit. The metal however is a thing that mostly gets suggested through sheer power and immersion in the guitar department. As things get heavier and louder you often get snippets of metallic riffing that counterpoint the maniacal onslaught of the drums as well as complementing the furious whirlwinds of piano and keyboards.

This is however not a record for the squeamish. As a matter of fact, I'd only recommend this thing to people who already have familiarised themselves with avant music and looney bin fusion. If you're one of these wild cats out there, then I strongly advocate this outing, as it most likely will have you running around naked in the garden wearing your cat as a hat - whilst drinking old milk frenziedly - shouting wildly about like a mental person who digs the feel of wet grass between his toes and music that literally goes berserk. 4.5 stars.