BORIS

With an interesting twin-vocalist lineup, complexities worthy of Gentle Giant, and a sense of drama and majesty reminiscent of Yes at their best, Yezda Urfa had some pretty convincing material on their hands with their demo debut album Boris. You've got to give credit to an album which intersperses its extended prog epic with the super-brief Texas Armadillo, which somehow manages to combine bluegrass with prog and make the resultant mixture curiously listenable. With the more epic tracks showing an incredible technical mastery, with amazingly complex pieces played at frenzied, breakneck paces, it's a genuine shame this album didn't get more exposure back in the day, but at least now it can take its place in the sun thanks to the efforts of the internet prog community. At the same time, I do find the album to be a little hit and miss, its listenability relying on not focusing on any particular musical direction quite long enough for the less entrancing parts to get truly irritating.