AT-KING

Finally,the time has come for me to review one of the most-I would dare to say-hated albums in progressive rock history,DEYSS's ''At king''.DEYSS were formed back in late 70's by Govanni DeVita.Several live appearances will follow with the band considering Yes,ELP and Genesis as their main influences.DEYSS represented themselves to the public in 1985,releasing a short-LP,entitled ''At king'' with a running time just over half an hour.

Despite the aforementioned influences,just a couple of listenings are enough to bring one and only band to your mind: MARILLION.This is pure neo-progressive very much keyboard-oriented and a guest vocalist named Patrick Fragniere.What about the music?...Well,I could call DEYSS just an average MARILLION-clone...Opening track ''Meeting...'' begins with the sound of battling swords and ends with a decent guitar solo.The follower ''Turning night...'' is a total disaster.Awful drum-machines,very much pop- oriented and disturbing vocals compose a bad image for the band.Things get a lot better with ''After and after''.A ballad-like track with good chorus,nice keyboards,decent guitar solos but a little bit overlong.''Chinese dawn'' is another decent track in the line.A good instrumental with slow-tempo and interesting keyboard work.''March of destiny'' follows and things get worse again.Despite sounding quite original due to the ''marching'' keyboards,the result is very amateurish,even childish,with a cheesy sound.This short LP closes with the eponymous track and this is a really good one.Clocking just under 10 min.,this track offers nice vocal arrangements-despite Patrick Fragniere's lack in vocal range-,some complex drum programming(!),superb synthesizers/guitar work and overall a good neo-symphonic sound,a path the band should have chosen from the very start of this album...

So,what about the rating?...Despite my love for neo-prog and some nice moments,this album has many weak references...Almost total lack of originality,amateur sound and vocals,badly sounding drum machines and an evident inexperience in composition...So,this is an album mainly for collectors and die-hard neo fans...Genarally I'd recommend you to spend your time and money somewhere else,there is a lot much better albums on market than this one...