THOUGHTS

Zyma was a 5-piece band coming from the area around Heidelberg/Mannheim and started their career doing progressive hardrock which is examplified by the two bonus tracks added on the CD re-release of this album here. Well, the material from the original vinyl is quite different from those ones that is a wonderful blend of folk, jazz and rock in the best Canterburian tradition. Especially the voice of the female singer which is sometimes slightly reminiscent of Annie Haslam contributes a strong folk touch to their music. Overall it's dominated by excellent Rhodes piano play accompanied by flute and violin. All musicians exhibit a great virtuosity on their instruments and the sound moves back and forth from light, swinging jazz over driving jazz rock to sometimes slightly experimental avant-garde. "We got time" is more a playful medieval folk rock piece but the remaining four tracks are absolutely flawless, highly diversified and truly amazing. Despite all virtuosity and playfulness the music on here stays throughout the album comprehensible,melodic and enjoyable. The two blues-tinged and harder-edged bonus tracks are not quite as brilliant but by no means a complete failure. Apart from the fact that they're suffering a bit from too much hiss in the vocal mix they're offering a nice addition and can't narrow the overall good impression of this album at all.

As a summary I can say that this represents a brilliant example of Canterbury-styled progressive rock coming from Germany and I'd highly recommend it in particular to any lover of this sub-genre.