YETCHALAL

I can't help but imagine the words "You Can Dance" when reading this band's name. And that's no coincidence: you can dance if you wannooo, you can leave your friends behind. Cause your friends may not have the dexterity to keep up with this avant-rock monster of an album.

RIO-influenced tangled melodic lines on guitar and tenor saxophone get prodded by a powerful rhythm section, pushing the music into the high-intensity zone that makes it hard to not want to dance. This stuff MOVES in a way that may seem antithetic to the clinical, unsmiling face that the RIO/Avant Prog tag often suggests. This is party music for circus acrobats.

The true secret weapon of this band, however, is the lead vocalist. He weaves impossibly complex melodic lines over the hard-charging, twisting music, drawing inspiration from Ethiopian traditional and popular songs. With all the throat noises, crazy trills, and impressive mobility around his chosen scale(s), he sounds very unique indeed in the context of Western prog. Depending on your tolerance of non-Western music, you may have a bit of trouble at first, but for fans accustomed to the non-Western influences often found in Rock-in-Opposition bands, there shouldn't be much trouble assimilating this.

The album consists of seven tracks ranging from three to nine minutes, and cover a variety of tempos, from the sullen jazz-tango of "Sema" to the fast and furious 4/4 stomp (almost ska!) of "Belomi Benna". The album opens with the confident march of "Aykedashem Lebe", establishing the band's formidable instrumental presence with a powerful avant-rock theme for a full minute and a half before the vocals come out of nowhere and take the track to a new level. A perfect opening track that shows the full range of the band and vocalist, and leaves you wanting more. Each song provides additional thrills, only really letting up on the nine-minute penultimate track, the slow, plodding "La Chamelle - Medinana Zelessegna" (actually a medley of two tracks), which has the ominous dark swing of something off 5uu's Hunger's Teeth album. But by then, this change of pace is welcome, and we are rewarded with the lively "Datsun Sefer - Mela Mela" to close out the album on a festive mood, what with the chant-along chorus of "Mela Mela" allowing the listener to join in the fun.

I've only had this album for two weeks (it was released 2 months ago), but it's hard to find fault with any of it. Every time I put it on, I find myself getting into it, and hardly ever turn it off before it's finished, like I often do in my short attention span world. The band has a unique sound that is as accessible and compelling as it is complex and daring, and they have a thoroughly non-standard (for Western music) singer who hits it out of the park again and again.

I'm going to throw caution to the wind and give this five full stars. Can't think of any good reason not to at this point.