2011

'2011' - Atrium (4/10)

With their greatest achievements thus far having been opening for Asia and Barclay James Harvest when those bands toured through Portugal, one can already get a good sense of what Atrium are about. Prog rock synthesizers, accessible arrangement and songwriting, and a quaint lust for melody are what drives '2011', their debut. While this is not a bad album, I cannot say I have been too impressed by what these guys have done here; a saccharine and somewhat amateurish attempt at neo-prog that never emerges from underneath the shadow of its influences.

The bands of which Atrium have clearly derived much of their sound from are the neo-prog heavyweights; Marillion and Pendragon, to name a couple. I would even compare Atrium's sound to the pop-oriented sounds of later Genesis; certainly not something that many prog fans will be too enthused to hear, but there is certainly more going on here than a pop label would suggest. Many of these songs run up the ten minute range, although the effectiveness of these mini-epics is dubious at best. The instrumentation is filtered through a plain recording, and while there are some pleasant sounding guitars and synths at work, there was never more than an idea or two that stuck with me, even after a few listens. The vocals reminded me most of a heavily accented Phil Collins, and while the vocals of this band are not atrocious, the voices and harmonies sound a little flat. Overall, the presentation shows promise, but passes me more as a work in progress, rather than the sort of album I would be returning to for repeated listens.

Another thing I could note is the length of the album, which- for a record which is mostly rooted in pop- feels a little too long for its own good. I do feel that had this album ended a couple of songs earlier, it would have been much easier to overlook the flaws in the musical formula, but at sixty-five minutes in length, the listener becomes well familiarized with what works- and what doesn't in Atrium's sound. I cannot say my interest was much sparked by this debut from these Portuguese pop-proggers, but with the signs of promise and intrigue in this album, I would not yet write them off completely.

Atrium from Lisbon - Portugal is a little known neo prog band. Formed in 2003 and only in 2011 they release their first offer named simply 2011. Well, Atrium played a type of neo prog very much similar with bands like Pendragon, or with Asia or Barclay James Harvest. Over all is not a bad album, but is lacking in energic moments, sometimes is to monotonous and the pieces doesn't deliver as much as I want. 7 pieces, very long ones, some ok instrumental sections, where the guitar and keyboards melting decent. The voice is something like Gabriel or even Collins , but noting spectacular in vocal lines, but not bad. Forte pieces to me are Story of a Great Man and Citizen of the World , these two are well balanced neo prog tracks with some intresting tet nothing groundbreaking instrumental parts. All in all Atrium first album is quite ok most of the time, but falling in the category of unknown albums that probaly will stay like this in next period. 3 stars for sure.

Influenced by the likes of Genesis, Yes, Camel, Pink Floyd, Pendragona and IQ, Atrium came to life in 2003 in Lisbon, Portugal through its founders keyboardist Rui Godinho and bassist Carlos Martins.The band settled to a trio the following year with the arrival of Pedro Cravo on guitars.While it appears they had a problem in the drummer's spot Atrium still launched a 3-track debut EP in 2008 (''Let me dream''), before Sergio Campos enters the picture behind the drum kit in 2009.A full-length album was the next step and in 2011 Atrium officially debuted with a 65-min. effort.The significance of the year is marked by the band as the album's title.

The music here is typical of the Neo Prog genre and pretty simplistic as its carrying title with the standard guidelines of a Neo Prog band: Instant melodies, rhythmic lines, semi-symphonic, multi-layered keyboards parts with lots of flashy edges and vocals in English, quite decent but not reaching the next level.While the music is not excessive, the tracks' lengths are pretty extended, six out of the seven are over 8 minutes long.What Atrium had chosen was to include different variations in the same track to deliver lengthy pieces, always driven by a strong sense of melody, comparable to PENDRAGON, IQ with touches of CAMEL, and some more theatrical aspects in the vocal parts.The result is cool but far from extraordinary, the atmosphere is both laid-back and intense depending on the track, some retro organ stylings are also thrown in for good measure and the guitar work is quite efficient with a few great soloing in a vintage, STEVE ROTHERY-inspired vein.But you gotta love a track like ''Like you (one step at a time)'', definitely the creative peak of this release, with its impressive guitar opening trembling, the orchestral synths, the obvious IQ-structural leanings and the fantastic grandieur in a CLEPSYDRA vein towards the end with Cravo's guitar in evidence.

Welcome entry in the misconceived world of Neo Prog.Melodic, atmospheric material in the vein of MARILLION, IQ, PENDRAGON, CLEPSYDRA and RED SAND.Recommended.