IMMERSION

Immersion has a unique musical approach to the progrock scene. It is difficult to catalog this work into a specific progressive rock genre (progarchives has cataloged Fabiola's works as eclectic progrock, which is a fair decision), or to put a reference band that could be used as a comparison with this work. That doesn't mean that you may find some parallelism with other works in some tracks. This unique approach is partially due to the instrumentation used, with basically no keyboards, or being more precise, there are synths used in a few tracks but as played as a background rather than as a lead instrument. The main melodic lines are mostly based in Fabiola's voice, the violin, the bass, and the guitar. The album can be dividend in two different type of tracks. On one hand, we have "Aether", "Ice Dust", "Individual Soul" and "Limerencia". I would define them as ethereal and mystical musical passages. Except for Aether, they are instrumental musical passages, although in some cases the voice is used as an additional instrument without words. On the other hand, we have "Aire sin Alas", "Clinging to Nostalgia", "Malady of love", "Sinergia" and "Solitude": These are more "canonical" (prog) rock songs, though this does not mean simple or mainstream at all. Some songs are in English ("Clinging to Nostalgia", "Malady of Love", "Aether", "Solitude") and other in Spanish ("Aire sin Alas", "Sinergia"). The album was released at the end of 2021 but several songs are much older (for example, FS has a YouTube video of Ice Dust dated in May 2014). So, this debut album can be considered a compilation of her own material she wrote between 2014 and 2021. There are three official videos ("Solitude", "Aire sin Alas" and "Clinging to Nostalgia") on YouTube, and live versions of "Aire sin Alas" and "Clinging to Nostalgia".

Limerencia: This is the perfect song for listening to when you take the train, the plane, and you just want to allow your mind to be free from the busy daily life. It starts with a beautiful ethereal musical landscape for the first half, then with a smooth transition it moves to a more dynamic but still ethereal musical terrain. Some passages of the song remind me a bit of Phaedra by Tangerine Dream (probably because of the mellotron).

Aire sin alas: This is beautiful, a sung poem about love, written in Spanish. The music is kind of folk progrock, with a beautiful, mystic melody led by the violin that ends up in an instrumental powerful section. There is an alternative version, from the single she released before the album, which is the official video on YouTube. This version has slightly different instrumentation, and it sounds more powerful. There are subtle differences in the vocal and violin sections.

Malady of Love: Another love song, but the as the title defines, this is about a poisoned love relation. This is the simplest song of the album. The melody is based on a dark but effective motif. After the second chorus, there is a nice instrumental section with a guitar solo. Then the songs starts again from the beginning.

Ice Dust: This is a short, very beautiful violin-led musical piece.

Clinging to Nostalgia: The song starts with a quiet melody beautifully sung that musically describes well the feeling of Nostalgia. Then it moves in a series of tempo changes, from fast to quiet transitions, including singing sections and cool instrumental passages dominated by the guitar but with cool bass lines. The song ends up with a pompous finale (in a positive sense).

Individual Soul: This is another instrumental track, led by the violin and the bass. I would define it as a dark, ethereal and very beautiful musical landscape.

Sinergia: This is the longest track. It was initially inspired in Discipline by King Crimson. But don't expect a clone track, not at all. It has a distinctive sound. Here, the ethereal, mystical musical explorations of other songs is substituted by a more dynamic, punchy and harder progrock track. It took me several listening to appreciate and love this track.

Aether: Using basically the voice, the acoustic guitar and the violin Fabiola manages to create a delightful, relaxing, mysterious, somewhat minimalistic, musical track.

Solitude: The album ends with this powerful song, initially inspired by Opeth's "To bid you farewell". But, as in Sinergia, don't expect a similitude with the inspiring track. Rather, the inspiration serves as a base to create her own and distinctive song. The verses are beautiful sung, and the instrumental bridges between verses original. And, as in other tracks of the album, it ends the song with a powerful instrumental section.

Final note: I would like to thank Fabiola for clarifying some doubts about a couple of tracks.

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