MARCONCEPTOS

Marco Gomez, simply named Marco for his albums, is a Mexican guitarist/keyboardist, who became an enthusiast of guitars since his youth and his love for prorgessive music grew after listenings to acts such as Quatermass, E.L.P., Genesis and other 70's legends.He performed in various concerts, competitions and TV broadcasts during the 80's, before focusing on writing his own music.In 1993 he established the indepedent Marcocosmos label, on which he released his first solo album ''Marconceptos'' a year later.

Gomez used his guitars, synths and a computer to complete the album, which is an amalgam of his progressive influences, exploring the Classical, Fusion and even Flamenco territories in a work of flexibility and balance.His work on synths and guitars of course prevails.From melodic symphonic soundscapes to orchestral arrangements, from Classical-inspired interludes to raw guitar workouts and from Latin-flavored acoustic passages to New Age moods, Marco Gomez desperately attempts to put up an all instrumental effort of different cultures.Most of his ideas are pretty good, he combines melody with complexity in a decent degree and his arrangements are above average.But ''Marcolapsos'' suffers from the diseases of the one-man solo projects.Thin synthesizer sounds, sterile production and mechanical drumming are the most obvious flaws in here, eventually dipping Gomez'es ideas into mediocrity with the majority of the compositions losing much of their potential grandiosity.

Sad to see an interesting release go down like this.Still the album has good chances to find a place among the collection of Symphonic Rock and Instrumental Prog fanatics.Approach with caution...2.5 stars.