BENEATH THE SKIN (A TRANSGRESSIVE ROCK TALE)

This obscure little gem from Latvia is closer to a Prog-Rock Opera than to a traditional Prog concept album, featuring several characters performed with the help of a few guest vocalists.

The concept must be taken with a pinch of salt, and thankfully the band themselves seem to take it with humour because otherwise it could have sounded terribly nerdy and pretentious. The album booklet includes the lyrics (in English) but not the story itself, which used to be available in the band's website but apparently has been mysteriously removed, so at risk of making this a painfully long review I will post it here for you:

Headturn was the demi-god assigned to rule the World of Music, and under his control musical art flourished, filling the world with peace, art and happiness. But another demi-god, the evil and greedy Makhtartam had different plans and wanted to turn music into a money-making machine at his service. He had been conquering different aspects of the world and locking their respective demi-gods in cages, but Headturn's cage was still empty. With help from the Low Brotherhood he managed to catch Headturn and lock him too into his cage. The Low Brotherhood then proceeded to create cheap music in the form of 'bricks' which they unleashed on the unsuspecting world. These bricks were highly addictive thus enslaving the music consuming population and generating big revenues for Makhtartam and his fellows.

Yet, before his capture, Headturn had seized stars from Heaven and sprinkled them throughout his land. Some of these fell onto fertile soil and thus the Fatty Brothers heard true music of the stars and avoided the enslavement of the musical bricks.

Meanwhile, God was not pleased with the imprisonment of his favourite demi-god and intervened to save him through the Angel Laudor, who provided the Fatty Brothers with 'the Skin of the Lamb', a sort of invisibility cloak by which they could approach the cages undetected and free Headturn. Along the way they met others who'd been touched by Headturn's scattered stars and joined them in their quest. Protected by the Skin, they finally free Headturn and depart for distant shores were pure music can develop again.

Yeah, even Rush's 2112 sounds serious next to this!

After such a long introduction I will not make a track by track review, but we find here excellent Prog with multiple influences ranging from King Crimson to Neo-Prog, Camel, Van Der Graaf Generator, other Rock- Operas such as The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Mike Oldfield, some Jazzy moments, Hard-Rock riffs, church organ parts, you name it. No weak moments in the whole album, my only warning concerns the vocals, not very good timbres and often excessively theatrical which can put some people off.

If this album was by a renowned band I would possibly rate it 4 stars but coming from an obscure Latvian band I find that I must reward their achievement and I will give it the 5 stars status.