CALIBRATED COLLISION COURSE

Oh my. Something went really, really wrong when this album was created. Or perhaps this fine Spanish act suddenly decided for a major shift in sound, now trying to reach out to a truly avant-garde audience. It's not an album that will have a broad appeal, that is the one undeniable fact about this production.

Shifty, fragmented compositions with some passages firmly placed in neo-progressive territories and other with distinct jazz and funk tinges to them, some mainstream-oriented escapades with more of a genereic pop expression to them as well. Nothing new or innovative, but nothing truly bad either. The passages with instrumental layers residing somewhere in between harmonic and disharmonic are much more problematic though - neither fish nor fowl as far as I'm concerned. Add in a lead vocalist with a voice like Peter Gabriel seemingly trying to sing in the same manner as Jon Anderson (on a lower register obviously) and bombastic backing vocals used both way too often as well as outside of most normal perceptions of when they are appropriate, and the end result is taxing, and not in a good way.

Some folks will love this stuff, but it is a release that will appeal to a very select few. And I'm not amongst those charmed by this experiment, obviously.