RETORN

Camel and Spanish prog fans rejoice. Here is a very impressive modern progressive band from Spain. Pi2 plays a very sophisticated, classy and contemporary brand of symphonic instrumental progressive rock. Most of the seven featured songs are packed FULL with extremely beautiful melodies driven by deftly played acoustic and electric guitars, keyboards (synth, organ and piano) and clarinet. The acoustic guitars have that familiar Spanish vibe to them but the electric guitars are straight out of the Camel sound of the late 70's. The songs go from relaxed symphonic parts to fast upbeat sections shifting from dramatically serene and breathtakingly BEAUTIFUL passages of guitar or clarinet (sometimes sounding like a flute) to Camel-like synthesizer driven melodies with heavy progressive backing bass and drum rhythms ("Nadal '98" and "Diable" being the two best songs in that vein). The music is not overly complex but definitely progressive. Fans of lush symphonic prog and mid-tempo instrumental guitar/keyboard melodies will really enjoy this CD. This music was released privately in 1998 but Musea has thankfully just recently released it worldwide.

I've just listened to all three PI2 (mathematics, I hate it!) albums and this one is the most Camel-inspired one. Imagine the "Mirage-Nude" era but with a more modern and laidback sound. The seven songs have a pleasant and warm atmosphere, what a wonderful compositions featuring the clarinet and good soli on keyboards (some flashy runs) and guitar (in the Latimer vein). If you want to dream away on beautiful progrock, this one is yours! GOOD CAMEL-INSPIRED PROG BUT NOT A CLONE!

Camel without the humpbacks.

Pi2 is a socalled supergroup from Spain and this is their debut album. The sound is pretty lush, drenched in keyboards as it is. The sound is pretty modern, the musicians are flawless. Camel has been mentioned. Put in Jan Hammer too and some modern jazz bands you find in soundtracks for American TV series.

Herein lays my big gripe about this album. The music here is nice, lush and nice again. Nothing offensive. It is solid background music for ironing, cookery, repairing your computer and planning a summer holiday. Trying to listening hard to this music to find 100 nice words to write about it is a harder task. The music is going nowhere. It is repetetive. It is dull. It is less toothless than a snail. There is in short no contents on this album. Just some plodding on one or more keyboards over some neo-prog like melodies which is not anywhere as good as Camel's output. There are some good pieces now and then. But there is not enough of them to go around. I am sorry, but this is not my cup of tea.

2 stars