CHERDAK

Latvian band Olive Mess has at least ten years making music, half way between avant garde, RIO and symph prog. "Cherdak" (Attic) is their second effort. Purchased in 2008 is a 4 long-epic suites album where the average listener could find some melodical avant garde influences, oriental and medieval sections mixed with complex rhythmical sections and some floating 70's symph prog passages "a la Yes".

Even when it's not a masterpiece the truth is that the 4 tracks sounds really good with all this textures and mixes of genres and styles, making sections in which prog, avant, RIO and others collide in almost perfect harmony.

My fav one is "Beowulf". Is the most proggy track of the album and definitively reminds me the work of Jean Paul Prat on tle album "Masal". From my POV, the best track of the album by far. The complex and experimental "Mane, Trechel, Phares" comes to second because all the rhythms and genres mixed in 17 minutes of a track that deserves a second look in order to discover every little detail in their scales and melodies. Can's leave out of this highlight the epical gran finale of "Ovum Mechanicus" with several minutes of a thrilling crescendo...

4*. No more nor less... You can't miss this one...