The second album from this band from Japan.
The band was a sextet with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars, keyboards, saxophones and vocals.
This is the follow up album to their 2021 debut album Evraak 1.
Their debut album gave us a blend of art-rock, eclectic prog, neo-prog and Japanese symphonic prog.
References were Van Der Graaf Generator, Gentle Giant, King Crimson, Genesis and Banco Del Mutuo Soccorso.
The band returned to the studio and some changes was made.
The music has moved a lot closer to eclectic prog, jazz and..... zeuhl. Yes, there are some very obvious detours into zeuhl here. Their roots in Japanese symphonic prog is still maintained and developed.
The music is also a lot more epic, bolder and heavier here too.
There is a lot of saxophones here this time around. The vocals, and they sound Japanese to me, are a bit thin but still in the Japanese symphonic prog tradition.
To the untrained ears not used to the Japanese symphonic prog scene, the music sounds a bit alien. Ditto for the mix which. I am not sure if the mix is wrong or this is the Japanese take on progressive rock. Some of the instruments sounds a bit muted and that sometimes also includes the vocals.
This one hour long album is still a good album and one to check out as it has a lot of life, quality and good pieces of music. This is indeed a very talented band and a band who, with some better songs, may get an international breakthrough before the end of this decade. I hope so.
3 points
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