CYCLOTHYMIA

If we can express something firmly, it is that Spain does not fade as far as progressive rock is concerned. And it is that there are few Spanish groups that have generated valuable contributions to this musical phenomenon, a situation more than interesting, taking into account the well-known fluctuations experienced by the style and difficulties that exist to prosecute a healthy vigorous scene. This new creative glow is Numen, a symphonic progressive band from Alicante founded in 1992, who since their genesis have oriented their style towards a musical structuring based on intense instrumental developments and a remarkable emotional charge as far as their lyrics are concerned.

Since "Samsara", his first album of 1997, works with neo-progressive touches of high beauty, through the dreamlike charm of "Numenclature", the second album recorded in 2014, the band has managed to offer a musical work of high quality. Therefore, it was foreseeable that his most recent opus, "Cyclothymia", would be in full sync with his predecessors, even more, this new album released this year under the Chilean label Mylodon Records, both on CD and in vinyl edition, come also complemented with new concepts, explained perhaps by the group's own maturity and the compositional strength of the band integrated by César Alcaraz (voice), Víctor Arques (bass), Manuel Mas (keyboards), Marcos Beviá (guitars) and Gaspar Martínez (drums ).

Cyclothymia is perhaps the darkest content album of Numen, given the remarkable thematic emphasis that inspires them, but it is not a conceptual album, although it is close to it, by virtue of the exploration that is done to these moods in the that the human being is submerged when life becomes a burden and a torment.

In the musical, vocal parts are conjugated very well achieved and of marked depth, in the typical lyrical style of Numen, with other more innovative instrumentals, expressed through the richness in the timbral and harmonic treatment of the work.

The mini suite that gives its name to the album is perhaps the maximum expression of this album, which goes into intricate sound passages, dominated by the presence of a wise use of keyboards that generate a symphonic neo-frenzy of particular beauty that results in a musical universe that represents the various moods that can be crossed by the human being, in the cyclical sense of the word.

After coping with an existence, which, like many bands, is marked by certain intermittences, the Numen film lives a new chapter, decidedly gravitational in the group's career.