CONTINUO

Kudos to Marian Varga who updated his keyboard arsenal to sound more contemporary - gone are Hammond and finally we hear analogue synthesizers and Moog. Playing is closer to progressive rock than classical music/hard-rock. There is a good balance of soloing and chords. Bass guitar and guitar have been updated too, they sound less raw and the bass has the funky groove sometimes. Drums have become perhaps too comtemporary reflecting the funk rhythms. There are only 3 compositions but don't be tricked by their length. Both long compositions are too long and the amount of their ideas could shrink the length by a half. The vocal is a typical pop vocal not very suiting this type of music but the album shows first hints of more pop songwriter approach from a vocal perspective. All three pieces have solid prog-rock motives but there's not enough development to justify the album length; they could have been better developed - in particular the sung parts are repetitive. "Continuo" has a perfect start bordering on jazz-rock, clever layers of synths and drums reflecting the dynamic spirit but then it lowers down to a disco rhythm so only keyboard remains interesting. The mid part falls a bit flat, a quiet reflective part, then keyboards including piano get more dynamic. Singing does not particularly help either in the end. Over all, while sonically interesting, the concept of having progressive rock keyboards with the rest of pop-rock inclinations does not fare well here. I give it 3 stars because of Varga's playing but it nearly missed it.