THE COSMIC REMEDY

I have this album for some weeks now and it surprises me every time. When we are talking about THE BEATLES' influence in a sentence that mentions GENESIS and SUPERTRAMP or YES than this music has not only progressive roots, but pop music too. It balances between vintage pop, powerpop and symphonic prog. And when we are talking about pop music, it has that vintage quality to it like in the sixties or in the seventies. The first part of the disk has the most progressive side, GENESIS and YES comes to mind. The first suite has the voice of ULF YACOBS who has a vocal tone very close to PETER GABRIEL. The second suite is a deep dive into sixties vibes, not only with the BEATLES influences, but the heavy use of mellotron, vintage pianos, Minimoog sounds like JEAN-JAQUES PERRAIS in his early Moog craziness. The third suite called "Lost Marbles Suite" is a collection of catchy songs, sung by three female singers, VERA KLIMA is a pop singer from Germany, and she shines like ANNIE HASLAM. Daylight Dreaming is probably my favorite track from this record. But the mood is not this upright during this suite. Blue Sea and Song Without a Home are both melancholic songs filled with mellotrons and vintage multiple backing vocals extravaganza, thanks to ÁKOS BOGÁTI-BOKOR. The last suite is closer to the sixties in style. The intro is something like THE BEACH BOYS would sing with only one acoustic guitar and a bass + 4-6 part harmonies from the BRIAN WILSON's early works. Train to Nowhere starts off like a ROLLING STONES song, climaxes like a KING CRIMSON tune and finishes as THE BEATLES, while the last track, Hiding from the Sun calms things down at the end with catchy melodies, slide guitar solo, multiple vocal harmonies, mellotrons and distorted bass at the end. The album's last guitar solo is tricky, it plays in reverse, ROBERT FRIPP and ADRIAN BELEW are using this technique very often. All in all this album is not for die-hard progrock fans, but for those who are into the sixties both in sound and music. I'd call this light prog and indeed it is very enjoyable album. Four stars from me.