BREATHING THE STORM

Perhaps, honestly, its righter score should be "3 stars and an half", because as a post new-age album it represents the final part of their career. Actually this one was not the turning point, but rather a "memory tribute" to their career, close to the end of their musical adventure, and unfortunately also a sad tribute to the memory of Tony Duhig: their last release will be dated 1993 - "A Distant Echo" (despite of their improvement in the compositions. The title is truly deserved once again, above all if your regard the old good times!!)

- But coming back to "Breathing the Storm", featuring Jon Field along with other two musicians, it is not an unmistakable work, above all if you consider the tepid music construction of the keyboards backing. It's a sort of more complex new-age composition, the music being as defined as the old albums, yet being less versatile and with a few spare styles, unlike their best prog efforts!! Besides the music is less creative in comparison to albums such as "Floating World". Nevertheless, despite of such defects, their music starts recapturing the spirit of the period concerning the famous label Island: it's a relaxed approach, however any insightful fan can understand the new spirit and mood as well, concerning this totally different line-up.

Their new goal in fact is the attempt of reaching the catharsis of their several previous musical ideas, driven in a unique compact body. Well actually their old achievement, a successful combination of rock, classical music and "wrapping" Japanese melodic lines, by means also of an oriental atmosphere plus some exotic percussions and a gentle flute as well, was very appreciated by their fans,but remaining anyway confined within a marginal and isolated prog scene. For this reason the old albums did not deserve the attention to be awarded and regarded as the most famous bands of the 70's prog scene. The present album and also the following ones naturally are conditioned by such pieces of evidence.

Recommended, even though not essential !!