SETI

"Overlooked New Latin American Prog"

I am still delighted about all those bands from the New Latin American Prog Movement that emerged in the last two decades: Angulart, Astralis, Supay, Amagrama, R-U Kaiser, William Gray, Bauer, Flor De Loto, Toccata, to name a few, so many quality bands, incredible! A strong feature is their pleasant blend of skills and emotion, for me always a Big Plus in Latin American prog. Another interesting progrock formation from that exciting and captivating continent is Chilean Seti, a project from multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer and designer Claudio Momberg (known for his collaboration with Clive Nolan). Between 2005 and 2015 Seti released only 3 studio-albums, along a live CD in 2011. I was very pleased with their very tasteful debut CD entitled Life Signs featuring moving guitar work (evoking Rothery and Latimer) and wonderful vocals. This review is about their next album entitled Discoveries, released in 2010.

The seven compositions contain lots of compelling parts and bombastic eruptions, layered with sensitive guitar play and majestic Mellotron waves (choir ' and violin section). Especially in the long and alternating opener A Draconian Tale, the strong build up in The Inner Outside and Uruqhart Castle and the final track Contact (including a long and flashy synthesizer solo).

Claudio delivers two instrumentals on this album: the electronically sounding Underground and the dreamy Falling Leaves, fine examples of his tasteful and varied sound.

My highlight is the song Ellipse, featuring the distinctive voice of known and prolific progrock singer Damian Wilson (among other things Threshold, Landmarq, Headspace, Star One, Ayreon, Mostly Autumn and Rick Wakeman), in combination with swirling Hammond organ and fiery guitar work (by Aly, from Mexican band Toccata), very exciting!

A strong second effort by Chilean Seti, especially recommended to the fans of the more symphonic rock oriented Neo- Prog bands, like early Marillion, IQ and Pallas.

This is the project of Claudio Momberg who has been in the Neo-Prog band Subterra and was the keyboardist in the project of Clive Nolan "Caamora". And Clive Nolan is a guest musician here with Damian Wilson and Steve Rothery. It's no surprise that the music has Marillion and IQ influences, especially on the track "The Hidden Messenger" and "The Great Conflict". The music is a modern Prog Rock that is basically symphonic Prog that can get to both extreme of Prog Metal and ambient music. They can get heavy with the guitars, but also quieter with some electronic soundscapes. The keyboards of Momberg plays a major role with beautiful melodies reminiscent of Genesis, check the track "Cascade of Changes". There are many vocalists, some good and some ordinary, the good; Damian Wilson who's performance on the track "Divine Decision" is impressive. This is a nice little album in the category of the new wave of Neo-Prog bands who instead of taking their influences only from the 70's are also inspired by modern music.

Seti are a Chilean neo-prog outfit who, on this album at least, play in a style which reminds me an awful lot of classic- period Arena (say, somewhere between the Visitor and Contagion). In fact, they're sufficiently good at the Arena sound that they've actually managed to get Clive Nolan to guest on keyboards - and, indeed, Marillion's very on Steve Rothery contributes a bit of guitar and Damian Wilson of Threshold appears at one point on vocals.

I hate to say it, but getting Damian Wilson to stick around may have been a good plan, because to be honest the lead vocals from Jaime Scalpello are a weakness here. To give him his due, I don't think this is necessarily his plot; the problem is that the lyrics he has been given are rather clunky, and his delivery inevitably suffers as a result. The lyrics are in English, and I suspect this is an illustration of how singing outside of your native language can be a bit tricky. The level of fluency needed to have a good ear to what to emphasise and when is surprisingly high, as is the level of fluency required to write lyrics in another language which sound natural, and when you have a lyricist who doesn't quite have that level of fluency writing for a singer who doesn't then you end up in a little trouble.

On top of that, the vocals tend towards being a bit intrusive; even if they were delivered perfectly, I suspect they would annoy me for how prominent they are. Instrumentally speaking, this is good stuff, but the vocals slightly spoil it for me.

SETI - this intresting prog rock band from Chile taken the name after a NASA program - Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, was formed around 2004 around excellent multi instrumentalist Claudio Momberg who already had another band named Subterra. SETI released so far two albums at great chilean label Mylodon. The second offer named Discoveries is to my ears a real winner, issued in 2010 got world wide very good feedbacks both from fans as from critics. Quite lenfght album, with lenghty pieces, long instrumental passages, vocals this time sung in english, excellent skills and very good sound overall. The music goes towars symphonic prog with some neo prog hints but in some parts there are some edgy passages with a harder edge, the combination of those elemets are made in great manner and with good vision in what direction the piece will take. I like a lot Jaime Scalpello vocal tone, fiting like a glove in this kind of music, also featuring here as special guest top notch vocalist Daman Wilson one one piece - Ellipse, aswell his special unique tone of voice is perfect for such music, well done job as always. As I said lenghy pieces, 4 out of 7 total has over 9 min, complicated arrangements, twists and turnes, the duels between guitar and keybords are excellent, some really fantastic passages on Underground or The inner outside. Most of the time the instrumental sections are bombastic well played with many catchy and memorable parts, as must have a prog rock album. I really like it , even SETI gone little under the prog radar, and definetly needs far more recognition, this second offer aswell the first are among the best Chile has to offer in last years. From me 4 stars, excellent album with many demandic arrangements. Nice artwork and overall package. For fans of elaborated prog something similar with Galleon, Yleclipse, Marillion here and there even with Ayreon in some parts or Erik Norlander solo albums. Recommended for sure. An unfairly unnoticed band.

Well i am chilean . So i feel proud to "Discover" we have a very good prog band. I listened to a promo copy of this album.

Here we find a strong influence(in my opinion) of mid Genesis era ,Thieves Kitchen maybe and swedish Galleon and White Willow and netherland s Flamborough Head.

A good album ,very well recorded( i can t distinguish in quality between this recording or the last Rush album for example) good compositions,good musicianship ... but i can,t find this work (and the one before this Life Signs) a very original prog. This music hasn,t the roots of the very original(because of the incorporation of some folkloric elements) Astralis or Aisles ...this may be a work of the english prog,the swedish prog ,the US prog and you ll say : "another traditional neo prog album".

Don t misunderstand me .I really like a lot this music and more than the other prog rock bands i mentioned before but there is a lack (may be) of more creativity ,more virtuosity ,more power,more decision to define a special prog work .

I really don t like Argentinians too much but i must say the best prog rock in this part of the world is in the other side of the Andes .Nexus work is the best(Chaneton too quite good) and we can t forget Sagrado Coracao from Brazil.

Remarkable is the participation of Damian Wilson and that is a very good consideration for this chilean band.

A BIG HAND FOR THE NEW LATIN-AMERICAN PROG, PART TWO!!

Here is another strong CD from a South-American progrock band, it seems that they are becoming the new leaders in the world of the progressive rock: William Gray, Bauer and Nexus from Argentina, Supay from Peru, Parthenon from Venezuela, Tarkus, Spin, GALF and Diapasao from Brazil and from Chile we have Astralis and .... Seti, what a wonderful debut CD (from 2005)! The brainchild is Claudio Momberg (multi-instrumentalist, producer, lay-out and composer), he has surrounded himself with seven other musicians to found Seti.

The climates in the eight melodic, pleasant and tasteful arranged compositions (five instrumental) alternates from spacey and dreamy to mid-tempo but mainly compelling and bombastic delivering lush keyboards and howling guitar runs, very moving. The keyboard sound is varied, from warm piano and orchestral layers to fluent organ runs and fat synthesizer flights. The English vocals are decent with a bit melancholical undertone. My favorite on this CD is the guitar player, this man knows how to push the rights buttons with lots of very moving soli! The highlight on this wonderful CD is the final track entitled The Ship Of Joy (almost 18 minutes, five parts). It contains lots of flowing shifting moods with strong vocals, sensitive guitar and Mark Kelly inspired synthesizer flights. Halfway the music turns from mellow into more and more lush, culminating in a splendid 'grand finale' featuring propulsive drums, powerful bass notes, bombastic keyboards and a strongly build-up, very moving guitar soli, goose bumps, this is Progheaven! At those moments Seti reminds me of early Marillion with closing sections like in Chelsea Monday and Forgotten Sons.

I hope Seti will release their forthcoming new album soon because this debut-CD has delighted me, highly recommended!

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