COLLAGE

After hearing so many good things about this band, I finally decided to check them out. Not being familiar with the rest of their output, I found this record to be really good and heavy keyboard-dominated progressive rock, sometimes reminiscent of ELP, but a bit more 'honest'.

That being said, although the compositions presented here are excellently played and feature some really nice lyrics, the pieces themselves are a little under-structured and the band often covers up the missing bits with jazzy jamming. While that is not necessarily a bad thing (the jams themselves reveal Le Orme to be a very tight band, capable of doing almost anything in terms of technical skill), it does tend to distract the listener if the same trick is repeated over and over.

Altogether, a good album which got me interested enough to look into the rest of this band's discography.