INTERPOSE+

Actually some of the musicians in this japanese band have been playing for some 20 years already under various names and in various configuratons. They were named Interpose earlier in their career but as far as i can tell Interpose+ is the first studio album they released (if not i would be interested in other work they did). Their music is clearly different from other more well known japanese bands as Gerard and Ars Nova ranging over several styles.

Instead of being influenced by ELP keyboards as these 2 bands are, guitar is generally the central element in Interpose's music accompanied by modern sounding synthesizers (no organ or mellotron on this album). The emotional female vocals in japanese language are quite good although they don't quite match the vocals of great singers as for instance Annie Haslam (Renaissance), Heather Findlay (Mostly Autumn) or Simona Angelieonie (Aries).

It's not so easy to define the music that Interpose is playing. It ranges from pure symphonic prog to Jazzrock/funk and fusion. The vocal sections are relatively straight forward, but the instrumental interludes have a lot of variation and many melody changes. This is an album that is pleasant on a first listen but to fully appreciate it i feel many listens are required.

Aircon starts off with a wonderful atmospheric guitar/synth solo quickly transposing into a funky riff with fiery guitar breaks, a great opener. The rest of the song is somewhat disappointing, vocals are good but the melody is not as engaging as on the other vocal oriented tracks, i also feel the song goes on for a bit too long.

Dayflower consists of two movements,the first part is outstanding with Aruga's voice battling it out against Tanaka's guitar, the best song vocally. The second is fully instrumental with dense playing of various instruments in a reprise of part 1, it's good but not as interesting as the first part.

Zitensya is rather different from the symphonic atmoshere in the other songs. It's a typically instrumental jazz rock composition starting out slowly with a repeated dominant piano riff with typically jazzy guitar noodling. It really accelerates in the second part with funky guitar riffs and crazy piano, leading into a tremendous fusion like ending. I picked up Inner mountain flame lately and indeed the ending resembles Mahavishnu orchestra as was already pointed out by Erik Neuteboom.

Koibumi has roughly the same structure as the first track, a quiet intrumental intro is followed by a vocal section that is much better in my opinion than the one in the first song, really good.

Last sign, a fully instrumental piece, is my favorite of the album. After a quiet intro we have a duel between spacy high pitched synth and floydian guitar. The song is rounded off perfectly with an authoritive heavy guitar line.

Concluding, this is a really good album without any bad moments. In my opinion the second half of the first and second composition and the first few minutes of the third are somewhat weaker, the rest of the album is truly great. Rating this album is easy, it's a typically 4 star album no up or downgrading involved here.

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