JAÉN KIEF

South American country Colombia hasn't given very many prog bands in all time. There are something like a dozen Colombian bands in PA, many of them Prog Metal. JAÉN KIEF from the city of Medellin was founded in the late 90's and their debut album was released in 2003. As the title suggests, this Spanish-language album is the second item of the pair of albums, and sadly it's also their last one. I haven't heard the debut, but the general opinion here seems to prefer this second album. There must be an interesting lyrical concept, perhaps a dystopian one to suit the rather dramatic essence of the music, but due to the language barrier I'm not trying to comprehend it.

Considering the feminine, fairytale-like sensualism of the cover and the fact that they have a female vocalist on board, in the end the music gets more masculine and less delicate than I was hoping. The opening track 'Invierno en Atlantis', being basically an instrumental, features plenty of wordless singing by Sol Beatriz Jaramillo. Her voice is very good, and the seven-piece band nicely combines electric and acoustic instruments such as saxophone and flute. The first proper song, pretty dramatic 'Religio Medici, 1643' adds the male vocals while Sol Beatriz is still heard too. Terrific flute parts and fine guitar playing. The keyboards department mostly relies on a relatively uninteresting background carpet of synthesizers instead of a pianistic/melodic approach. The guitars are generally used more diversely, and the acoustic guitars, alongside the flute, also give the music some folk colour.

The latter part of 'El Hilo del Insomnio' features the bright piano melodies I was missing, and the duet vocals are shared equally between the man and the woman. A great extra characteristics on this album is the way the tracks follow each other seamlessly. 'Hombres des Hielo' has an ELOY-like atmosphere, thanks to the impressive synth playing. At the first listening I thought that the album goes a bit downhill after the beginning, ie. gets more masculine as the vocal parts are mostly sung by male members (for example the tightly rocking track 'Tus Suenos de Tul' approaches macho-like Latin spirit I'm not keen on at all), but fortunately Sol Beatriz is heard throughout the album, although too rarely as a primary vocalist! Yes, the first half of the album is admittedly better, but all in all this is a sonically rich and exciting, dramatically built opus definitely worth checking out if you are generally interested in Latin American prog.

I have always been following the Latin music scene, along with Italy and Spain, areas where i have found some of the most fulfilling albums. What huge surprise, at lest for me, was to discover this Colombian band, and from Medellin of all places.

This is the second offering from Jaen Kief, and to this listener, my favorite of the 2 albums. Although you will identify some influences from well known bands, their approach to music and the inclusion of local influences is what makes of this album such an enjoyable listen. The music here is oriented to the classic progressive rock scene, symphonic at times, so the album will please fans of this style, others, looking for a fresh sound and something new to enhance your collections, go ahead, and check the sound bits in cyberspace.

This Colombian group from Medellin started originally in late-90's as a gathering of musicians to perform an over an hour piece of work, written between 1990 and 1998.The 8-piece line-up was in search of a quite original name, eventually they came up with the term ''Jaen Kief''.In 2006 their work, now reduced to 45 minutes, was released under the title ''Las Hadas No Vuelan Mas - I. Vagas Nubes'' by the specialists of Musea Records.

A nice mix of South-American Folk Rock with strong and sharp Symphonic Rock was finally what Jaen Kief had to offer and no doubt the band did it very well.The album is divided into short acoustic interludes and highly atmospheric, symphonic and bombastic instrumentals, enlightened by the lovely female vocals of Sol Beatriz Jaramillo and the decent voice of Juan Gonzalo Tamayo.The first ones produce excellent and warm soundscapes with the acoustic guitars and melodic flutes as the leading instruments.The later fall into the Symphonic Rock category as performed by TREM DO FUTURO, TEMPUS FUGIT,NEXUS and ATEMPO.Melodic, well-crafted and fairly demanding, rich Progressive Rock with fine orchestrations, featuring edgy synthesizers, atmospheric organs and delicate guitars.The combination of the two styles works succesful for the most of the album's length, having a good balance between spacey, grandiose moods and more adventurous climates.

Although some of the aforementioned bands have performed the style in a more succesful way, Jaen Kief's debut remains a work of significant interest.Atmospheric and well-performed Progressive Rock with strong symphonic and Folk vibes, certainly warmly recommended.

Usually Colombia is associated with drug wars and extreme violence, you should almost forget that people still make music, even progressive rock! Jaen Kief is a formation from the infamous Colombian city Medellin, in 2003 they released this CD. The seven compositions (some are divided in several parts) sound very tasteful and varied, this is already emphasized in the different atmosphere between the first two tracks: Prologo contains twanging acoustic guitars and warm vocals while Obertura is loaded with a bombastic sound featuring howling electric guitar and propulsive drum beats. On the other songs the music alternates between folk, classical and symphonic rock, especially the electric guitar soli (with echoes from Hackett and Gilmour) are wonderful and very compelling. But the keyboards are also worth to be mentioned, from sparkling piano to soaring strings and a sumptuous church organ sound. A strong point in Jaen Kief their prog is the integration of a variety of instruments like flute traverse (evoking Jethro Tull), saxophone, acoustic guitar and assorted percussion, embellished with inspired Spanish male and female vocals (at some moments a bit theatrical). This makes listening to Jaen Kief to a pleasant musical journey. I hope to hear more from this delicate Colombian band, it is 3 years ago that this CD was released ... do they still exist? I hope so!

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