AFTER CRYING 6

The 5th studio album of After Crying is named "6", but they include the live debut in the count.

As many bands and albums from eastern Europe this is highly influenced by ELP. This appears evident by reading the name of the closing track that's "A Tribute To Keith Emerson", but from a musical point of view the link with ELP is more in Tamás Görgény's vocals as he sings very similar to Greg Lake and in the orchestral arrangements that as well as ELP are influenced in some way by Aaron Copland.

Also the piano ragtime interlude in "Salto Mortale" is closer to Gershwin than to Emerson's excursions in the genre.

What is typical of After Crying is in the use of trumpet and brasses in general. The distinctive sound of this band can be fully appreciated in "Sleepin' Chaplin".

The album's structure is unusual: there are five "master tracks" composed of 1 to 6 parts, but we are not speaking of suites logically divided into parts. Each part is a separate track and can live on its own like the movements of a symphony. And this means that labelling this band as Symponic Prog is more than appropriate.

There are also many reminds to the previous albums and self-citations both in some musical parts and in the track titles, giving the impression that the band was planning to quit. "Farewell to 20th Century" maight have been a farewell to After Crying, even if 7 years after this release another album appeared.

The whole album is excellent, but the highlight is the mentioned "Farewell" that's also the most symphonic and orchestral "master track". A good summary of the After Crying's career with the orchestral parts sounding similar to ELP in Works. This is probably the darkest part, specially in the first movement, but a bit of darkness in a symphony is fine.

Last, the tribute to Keith Emerson is a song dedicated to the keyboardist mainly based on piano and orchestra which partially reminds to Piano Concerto N.1 but only because it's orchestral. It could remind to a lot of classical music and last but not least to the usual Aaron Copland.

Another excellent addition from this highly skilled Hungarian band