ICEBERG EN DIRECTE

This is a very odd live album, it consists entirely of songs which were never released in studio version, it is only 35 minutes long and its 4-and-a-bit songs are taken from 5 different concerts in Bilbao, Oviedo, Reus and 2 concerts in Madrid, separated with fade outs. As a consequence it does not provide any feeling of rendering the experience of watching an Iceberg's live concert, and in this respect as a live album it fails. And yet, the music is good enough to give it 3.5 stars which I'm rounding up to 4 to differentiate from the purely 3 stars I give to the following Arc-En-Ciel.

Side A in the LP is by far the best and consists actually of 2 songs which have been merged as a single 18 min track on CD. "Oh, Un Anec Simfonic!" (Oh, A Symphonic Duck!) is the first 9 min section, it starts funky but gradually gets more proper fusion, with good melodic lines. Then the soloing section comes, first with a powerful guitar solo by Max Sunyer but less aggressive than his solos in the album Coses Nostres, followed by the synth solo by Kitflus. At 8:00 it gets soft again showing good dynamics before ending at 9:13 minutes. The second 8:45 section is the song "Ones" (Waves), a great mellower track with nice melodic phrases, alternating guitar and keyboard solos which after a crescendo merge into synchronized soloing, again very good dynamics, reminds me of Brand X. The playing ability of the guys is as impressive as always and the rythmic section terrific, especially the drumming of Jordi Colomer.

Side B is still very good but relatively weaker showing the trend which would continue in Arc- En-Ciel, less melody and more soloing, and a more standard jazz-rock feel and less fusion. "Cancó Per Qualsevol Orquestra" (A Song For Any Orchestra) follows this more straightforward jazz-rock direction, the beginning reminds a bit of the Dixie Dregs, it has good alternating solos of guitar and keyboards but it lacks melody and passion. The last track "Histories" (Histories) is based on a fast drumming rhythm, half samba and half Dixie Dregs bluegrass, it has good structure with a calmer section, crescendo, rhythm breaks, synchronized soloing and coda to the main fast theme, but overall it lacks a bit of inspiration. The album ends very oddly with a fade-in-and-out of some 30 seconds from their track "La Flamenca Electrica" from the album Coses Nostres, one of their best known melodies, but I have never understood what it does here, probably because after listening to 4 tracks which nobody knew before, it serves to remind that we were listening to an Iceberg album.

Very good fusion but less good that their first 3 albums.