EXPRESSO II

This is a Gong album of the fusion period. It is fully instrumental. It seems there are no keyboards. This record has a pretty original fusion tendency, without spacy textures, and with a rather "drums & percussion" preponderance. The elegant, magic and sophisticated mixes of xylophone, vibraphone, marimba, glockenspiel and tubular bells are absolutely delightful: they occupy a substantial place, since they are played by 3 musicians. Compared to Ruth Underwood's or Ed Mann's performance, the percussions here are more melodic and they less consist in the same note played many consecutive times at an infernal speed: so, many notes are more sustained and resonant. The drums are quite fast & refined. There are some excellent violin parts, especially on "Soli", a courtesy of Darryl Way. On "Heavy tune", the electric guitar solos rather have the Steve Hillage's style: these solos are not from Holdsworth: it has not his style. Holdsworth's electric guitar solos on "Sleepy", "Soli" and "Three blind mice" are excellent. On "Sleepy", there is a wah-wah bass arrangement(if i'm correct)which sounds like the one Goblin use on the "Suspiria" album.

Rating: 4.5 stars