HOLOGRAMS

Holograms is the first release of original material from The Segue -- a band from Krak'w, Poland. Their instrumental music is a perfect balance of jazz, metal, and classical influences expressed in engaging, forward-leaning compositions. Musicianship is top-notch, and their performance is tight. At times I am reminded of Special Providence (especially their Soul Alert album) or even Planet X, although their metallic aspects are considerably less brash and more tolerable to this non-metal fan.

The album is nicely balanced. It is neither guitar-centric, nor keyboard-centric. Each musician, including the bass and drums, has equal time to shine in the spotlight. You'll find some wonderful jazz club piano and bass play, and the guitar solos at times remind me of the style of Jeff Beck. Drums on the last two tracks are outstanding. Both tracks are harder and more energetic, especially the final track which slowly builds to a grand climax.

The best thing I like about this first release is the potential it shows for some astounding work to (hopefully) follow. Three-and-a-half stars easy, rounded up to four as encouragement for this band to continue their "...unyielding search for unique textures of sound" (per their Bandcamp page).

This is a very interesting and kind of eclectic mix of fairly straight-forward, sometimes jazzy, sometimes proggy tunage, that I have to say I like quite a bit (which was kind of a surprise). It's not pushing boundaries so much, but it's nicely executed, and it has a great feeling of what I sometimes refer to as nice "background prog", something I like to have just playing in the background while I'm doing other stuff. Though the music isn't quite as jazzy, a lot of Yuka and the Chronoship fits in the same niche for me...nice to have in the background and though I really enjoy it, I might not actively listen to it the same way I would to other prog (Yes, Genesis, etc).

I like the fact it's instrumental, because maybe there have been too many more recent bands where the vocalist just didn't have the chops or sounded a little too "hair metal" for my taste. The music probably sits between a 3 and 4 star rating for me, but just because I really like this, I'll give them a round up to 4. Good stuff, and I'm looking forward to their next disk.