THE FINNISHING TOUCH

A couple days ago the mailman rang the bell of my house and I knew he was probably bringing a couple albums of "LIFE LINE PROJECT" that my friend "Erik de Beer" had sent some days before, so after verifying I was correct, placed "The FINnishig Touch" in my CD player and started to enjoy the music of a relatively new band that I enjoy very much.

This time "De Beer" and company presents us some sort of conceptual album, because the band works on a melancholic anonymous Finnish folk song, now, the interesting aspect of this release is that they don't limit themselves to ethnic music, but explore variations on Jazz, Rock, Prog and even Classical arrangements, creating a very interesting and versatile atmosphere.

But probably the most surprising factor is that "LIFE LINE PROJECT" for the first time since I heard them, rocks and very hard, but manage to make the impact smother blending this new experiment with fluid Moog and sad,melancholic passages.

This time I won't dare to comment one by one the 17 tracks of the album, but only mention the ones that impressed me more, like "Tricky Dicky Finds The Rainbow's End", a fantastic instrumental that has everything, Heavy Prog with a killing guitar that blends with a jazzy piano, frantic synths and some acoustic" sections that satisfy all the tastes.

"Attical Problems" is another surprising track, starts acoustic and almost Flamenco (Lets remember that the Netherlands also have Flemish influence as Spain) but after a few minutes morphs into a fully Prog and frenetic piece of music, with radical tempo changes, simply brilliant and with a certain FOCUS (Mostly Jan Akkerman) influence.

"The Missing Drink" brings back the listener to Prog territory with an outstanding and breathless Moog performance that reminds of "Keith Emerson", but most important leads to an impressive contrast between the soft and Classical oriented "The 2nd Finnish Interlude" and the Flamenco inspired "The Finnishing Touch", two short tracks that in a few seconds prove how versatile this guys are.

Of course I couldn't close this thread without mentioning the pompous "Little Alice" and the amazing "Saudades de Sor" a track based in a 19th Century chord progression by "Fernando Sor" played in Jazz mood with a replica of the Palormo guitar of 1928 that the musician used more than a century ago.

Before moving to the rating I fell it's important to mention that the album has several short interludes, something I see with disrust, being that many bands use this short instrumentals merely as fillers, but in this case all have the important purpose, to work as links between different genres to soften the collision among absolutely different atmospheres that otherwise would sound contradictory. Something "LIFE LINE PROJECT" has achieved with dexterity, being that each and every song sounds as an integral and coherent part of the whole work.

In my opinion "The FINnishing Touch" deserves no less than 4 solid stars, being that it's original, interesting but most important, crafted with intelligence and passion, all the ingredients necessary for an album to be considered an excellent addition to any Prog collection.

As usual with this band, highly recommended.

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