OPUS 1

A relatively strange-looking cover and a band I've never heard of before being labeled as 'symphonic' made this one enough for me to take a listen. As far as band members are concerned, I'd only heard of Dusan Prelevic before and had been familiar with his performance in Atelje 212's adaptation of "Hair", and I must say that I was pleasantly surprised by the instrumental capabilities of the rest of the band, especially Miodrag Okrugic's organ playing, which is quite similar to Vincent Crane's. The group's sound is very much in the vein of acts like Procol Harum (the beginning of "Skupljac zvona" being almost identical to "A Whiter Shade Of Pale") or Atomic Rooster, focused on Okrugic's rumbling organ (backed up by some piano here and there). Prelevic's vocal is good and I prefer him to Zlatko Manojlovic (who sings lead on Memento Mori). The songs, besides the fact that they sound like demos recorded on a magnetophone (which is not necessarily a bad thing, it reminded me a bit of a late 60s obscure US psych/prog act called Sleepy John), are fine, the heavier tunes have an Atomic Rooster feeling to it, while the more laid-back ones remind most of, as mentioned above, Procol Harum or ballad-type songs of Indexi/Korni Grupa from the same period.

All in all, this is a very enjoyable "garage prog" record, but, as other reviewers have already mentioned, it's almost impossible to get the original LP (my copy is a vinyl rip with two non-album singles as bonustracks). Two and a half stars with a hope that someone someday will remaster it.