SHIP

My first encounter with Japanese artist Yuka Funakoshi, composer and keyboarder. She's heading this project since 2009, alongside with some professional session musicians on bass, drums and guitar. Here we are experiencing her fourth album in the meanwhile. Remarkable, this really hit me by surprise. You will explore tricky, predominantly instrumental and heavy weighed rock songs, which are showing a clear prog signature. State of the art when it comes to the production, but also equipped with a recognizable favour for the 1970's spirit of optimism. This especially concerning Yuka's cool organ and piano presence. And nice to hear Sonja Kristina initially participating with her unquestionably distinct voice.

Soon 'The Argo Suite' continues with the thrilling The Ship Argos though, which features a significant contrast due to a bunch of metal guitar riffs contributed by Takashi Miyazawa. That really works quite well, appealing! Atomic Rooster, Colosseum, ELP, this are somewhat evident references when listening to Yuka Funakoshi furthermore. And A Dragon That Never Sleeps sets the focus more on a fusion fundament. Finally the charming Did You Find A Star? even offers some male vocals by Hiroyuki Izuda. Skilled musicians at work here, recommended! Released via Cherry Red Records this is a really fantastic 60 minutes lasting outcome, which impresses me the more I'm listening.

Keyboard captain Yuka Funakoshi and her crew of prog sailors embark on another voyage on Ship, yet another concept album. This time, their various mostly-instrumental prog excursions revolve around various types of ship, as the title implies; the major attraction here is the multi-part epic Argo, named for the ship which carried Jason and the Argonauts on their quest for the Golden Fleece - and which was ultimately the death of him, after he'd been ruined by his own hubris.

Still, there's no sign of Yuka and her team succumbing to such faults here - far from resting on their laurels, they continue to produce fresh-sounding instrumental prog which bridge classic prog and modern compositional approaches and performance styles. Curved Air's Sonja Kristina steps in to do guest vocals as the voice of none other than the Argo's figurehead at the start of the album, a welcome sign that the Chronoship crew have won the respect of the prog trailblazers whose wake they sail in.

Very well-recorded and produced heavy Neo Prog with a symphonic flair from Japanese prog keyboard player Yuka Funakoshi and her posse.

The "ARGO" Suite: - 1. "Tears Of Figurehead" (1:55) Sonja Kristina sounds old. (4/5) - 2. "Ship Argos" (6:30) tightly performed Neo Prog with a crisp, heavy edge. The electric guitars are well played if stereotypic for the modern Heavy/Metal prog sound. Yuka's keys and wordless vocals are the highlight of this song for me. (8/10) - 3. "Landing" (5:49) standard heavy Neo Prog with some really great keyboard and rhythm guitar work and some really loud, in your ear kick drum work. Quite a little common ground with Lalo Huber's NEXUS band. (8.5/10) - 4. "Golden Fleece" (5:04) nice set up--reminiscent of URIAH HEEP or even PROCUL HARUM and FOCUS only heavier. Nice organ and lead guitar work. (8.75/10) - 5. "A Dragon That Never Sleeps" (7:09) opens with chunky bass, soon joined by fast pacing drums (in straight time). Nice bass playing and lead guitar work. Best diversity and instrumental displays of the suite. (9/10) - 6. "Islands In The Stream" (3:54) opening with nice acoustic guitar play, bass, drums and vocalise soon join in. Great feel, great mix, great melodies. (9.5/10) - 7. "Return" (2:04) has all of the bombast of a rock opera intro/outro. Nice endpoint. (5/5)

8. "Air Ship Of Jean Giraud" (6:17) a mild tempoed song that tells a story instrumentally, even broken up into "chapters" with shifting themes and dynamics. Quite nice. A show piece for guitarist Takashi Miyazawa fine work. (9/10)

9. "Visible Light" (8:02) Lyrics! Yuka singing! In Japanese! It's good! The "Mellotron" is a bit dated within this mix but it's a good song! Very nice work from drummer Ikko Tanaka and the rhythm guitarist. (8.75/10)

10. "Old Ship On The Grass" (5:01) acoustic guitars (ukelele?) and a bit of a down-home rhythm section over which Yuka's organ plays an almost-polka sound. Kind of hokey but Yuka's piano and scatting in the second half make up for it. (8.25/10)

11. "Did You Find A Star" (9:06) opens with piano and "flute" in a slow, somber pastoral set up. Vocalist Hiroyuki Izuda opens up the singing showing quite some talent and aplomb. Flute gets the next verse before Hiroyuki joins in again. They lose a little momentum during the chorus as Hiroyuki has to resort to "na-na-nas" to complete the space in the melody. A long, soft interlude breaks the song up halfway through before picking up and continuing Sonja Kristina is supposed to be present somewhere here but I can't hear her. (8.75/10)

The Argo suite has the feel of seven songs sequenced together instead of one prog epic. The instrumental work is excellent--especially the keyboards and guitars--but the composition and engineering are a little too much like Arjen Lucassen's prog-by-the-numbers. Also, I can't decide if this is Heavy Prog, Neo Prog, or Symphonic Prog. I think the music suffers from always being played in such straightforward rock time signatures.

Four stars; an excellent addition to any prog lover's music collection.

While Yuka & Chronoship is a neo-progressive band, I'd classify this album as primarily symphonic-prog with some distinct aspects of progressive metal and fusion. It's a solid effort, although only a handful of the tracks are distinctive. The rest of the album sounds interchangeable with other current neo-prog offerings.

A glance at the tracklist and a quick sample of the first song may give you some incorrect impressions. For one, as other reviewers have noted, this is primarily an instrumental album, although it opens with a vocal track. This track is the first of seven parts of what appears to be a cohesive suite called "Argo." I preemptively joined these tracks together on my computer so I could enjoy them as a continuous epic. Alas, I had not read the reviews here and didn't realize that these are separate songs, though they certainly do sound like they're from the same album. Two sections of "Argo," "The Ship Argos" and "Landing," are among the strongest tracks here. There are no weak songs.

Overall, very good playing, especially by keyboardist and bandleader Yuka Funakoshi and by guitarist Takashi Miyazawa. Since Ship is good, but not essential, I rate it a three-star album.