NATURAL PRESTIGE

The debut album from this multi national band.

The Oneira has their basis in modern art rock. Their music is a bit difficult to pinpoint, but Tears For Fears second album is a good starting point. Art rock, but not quite progressive rock. The instrumentation is a mix of heavy guitars, funky bass, flowing drum beats and keyboards. All of them plus the vocalist delivers excellent work. The music has an emphasis on good melodies. But there is also a lot of interesting details on this album. Given a good marketing budget, this album will sell like hot cakes. The phrase "given a good marketing budget" is the sticking point here in a very overcrowded scene. Natural Prestige would not really appeal to the snobby prog rock fan and the music is too complicated and sophisticated for the casual rock fan who regard Rolling Stones as the best band this planet has ever seen. That sums up the music on this album.

There is nothing wrong with the quality of this album though. The melodies is very intelligent, cleverly crafted. Some good vocals is interwoven between long, lingering instrumental passages. Unfortunate, this album also includes a couple of very commercial pop like tunes too. Well, they sounds like throw away Rush tunes. My second gripe is the lack of any really superb songs here. There are some great melody lines scattered around Natural Prestige. But none of them has been combined into one great song which would have elevated this album to a new level again.

But this is a very good debut album and the band should be happy about it. Art rock fans should wave their credit cards, hareem and camels towards Musea and their online shop.

3.5 stars

For Filippos Gougoumis and The Oneira it all started, when the Greek-born guitarist and composer moved to Italy for studying medicine.Located in Verona and after graduating from university he started composing original material, inspired by his child heroes Rush and Journey.Upon his meeting with drummer Erik Spedicato (who had studied next to legendary Italian drummer Tullio De Piscopo) and keyboardist Giampaolo Begnoni he decided to form this trio, named after the Greek word for ''dreams''.The Oneira debuted in 2010 with the album ''Natural prestige'' on Musea Parallele.

Gougoumis' influences are fairly indicating the style of the album.Somewhere between Neo Prog, Power Rock and melodic Rock, The Oneira try to find peace and come up with an accesible album, which still holds enough interest from a progressive or technical point of view.But it'a all about solid and efficient songwriting here and Gougoumis has made a pretty nice job on coming up with striking melodies, powerful guitar solos, bombastic tunes and even some virtuosic instrumental deliveries.''Natural prestige'' is characterized by an emphatic pomposity, a tight approach on song structures and the numerous breaks from powerful musicianship to more sensitive, melodious textures.RUSH (blistering guitar rhythms and epic atmospheres) and JOURNEY (smooth piano lines, pompous keyboards, clean voices) are certainly a guiding light for this album, which also draws some influences from the flashy instrumentals of British Neo Prog or the mellow and lighter side of CAMEL.Well-crafted material all the way with rockin' parts, alternating work on keyboards and piano and, surprisingly, extended instrumental parts, while Gougoumis' voice, when present, is absolutely decent.At the very end they remind me a lot of compatriots CANADA with a less AOR-tinged approach, where the music surfaces from its rich and energetic background to offer memorable and dynamic compositions.

Dreams are made to become true at some point and Gougoumis' made so with The Oneira's debut.Energetic, passionate and melodic quasi-Prog Rock with emphasis on convincing songwriting and accesible instrumental textures.Recommended.