HOMBRE, TIERRA Y ALMA

A fairly insubstantial helping of Iberian progressive rock, the second album from Spain's Bloque finds this intriguing group building on the primitive sounds on their debut without ever really crafting a style of their own. Ranked alongside other Spanish greats such as Triana and Crack, Bloque's sound features a carefully-woven brew of strange atmospheric soundscapes, bouncy organs, emotive vocals and hard-edged guitars, ultimately coming across like a kind of hybrid bastard child of PFM and ELP. Unlike many of their fellow countrymen, the group's sound doesn't take it's influences from flamenco and jazz, instead concocting a symphonic sound that borrows heavily from both the British and Italian scenes of the early-seventies. Fans of European prog may well find much here to their liking, especially on such tracks as the synthesizer-led 'Medley 2' and closing piece 'Por Fin He Vuelto A Ti', which features some nicely-played double-tracked fuzz guitars, yet the overall effect is pretty uninspiring. Listenable stuff then, but there is plenty better European prog out there.

STEFAN TURNER, STOKE NEWINGTON, 2012