COLOSSUS ADEA

Just a quick review of this debut album from a relatively obscure Wisconsin-based trio that makes great instrumental prog with a touch of fusion, without the "metal".

Parallel Mind is Joe Babiak (drums, percussion, flugelhorn!, trumpet), Nibandh Nadkarni (keyboards) and William Kopecky (6-string electric fretless bass). Their very impressive website claims that their influences are Yes, Rush and Planet X, though I also hear some occassional similarities to Niacin, Jordan Rudess, and Happy The Man.

With some guest musicians (guitars and wordless vocals) on some tracks, they produce a very full sound. The compositions are all strong, very interesting and well-played. Kopecky probably has the most notoriety with his virtuoso bass-playing in other bands (Par Lindh Project, Kopecky, etc.); but Babiak's drumming is Neil Peart-ish top-notch, and with influences and comparisons to Derek Sherinian, Rudess and Wakeman, you can rest assured that Nadkarni's keyboards are superb.

With 65-minutes of non-stop great music, this is a CD that everyone should seek out. Listen to the sound samples on their website, then buy the CD. I hope it's only the first of many from this promising band.

A truly fantastic album, on the harder end of jazz fusion but that doesn't mean the band can't perform in the softer moments of the album. On the whole the musicianship, compositions and recording are extremely tight, the sound is crisp and the music is driven, spending little time fiddling around or getting to the point. Rather, you feel as though all of the music is necessary, that it is all well thought out, polished edited and re-polished, leaving little to no filler.

The album isn't perfect however, one begins to lose interest after a while as it begins to sound the same (a problem among many instrumental albums). On top of that nothing sounds terribly new, it's well executed and polished but at the end of the day, much of this sounds like music we've heard before.

I'm not going to go through each individual song because, in truth, there's no point. The music is seamless and going through every sound / time change in the music would be a tedious and mind numbing venture that wouldn't provide any real value without the music accompanying it. What I am going to say however is that if your a fan of LTE / Planet X, buy this record. If you love fusion and are looking for something a bit harder, get this record. Similarly, if you like Heavy Prog / Prog Metal and want to get into fusion, this is a good place to start.

For everyone else, you can probably skip this one over, it has some great musicianship but ultimately nothing new.

4 stars for my personal rating, and for fans of Fusion or heavy instrumental prog.

3 stars for everyone else.

A fantastic album but it is in no way essential for most people's library.