H.E.X.

What an authentic heavy jazzy tighty creation massively flavoured with mid-70s King Crimson essence but little texture of orthodox native Italian progressive vibes, it's kind of a common opinion by a progressive rock fan though. "H.E.X." was released in the last month of 2021 as the sixth full-length album by an Italian virtuoso combo NODO GORDIANO. I'm very glad that I can have such a fascinating album this yearend, and additionally that the frontman of NG Andrea has notified me of this release (thanks Andrea!). Mixed feelings can be seen even deeply in the sleeve pic, which remind us of such tough circumstances all over the world, especially for lots of artists. However, this opus filled with their strong intention to beat the current situation out and to produce 'ultimate' artistic explanation also makes us happy. It's another moment for us to be on the same ground with them.

This album consists of two long (26 minute) suites. The first shot "Heng" gets started with a brilliant scene of sound in the similar vein to Close To The Edge, that express us their energetic potentiality saturated with progressive rock pioneer colours. The following powerful heavy metallic sound appearances would be solidified by their 'British' progressive roots like Genesis or King Crimson. Anyway let me say we cannot easily grab any 'native' 'unsophisticated' Italian flavour but can slightly feel some touch of Italian jazz rock vanguard like New Trolls or Area, although I don't know if they have got into such an Italian jazz rock scene. Crazy deep tight rock representations (leaning towards the masterpiece Red) on the latter phase stimulate our inner heart drastically but the last dark ambience like Roger Waters simultaneously cools our heated brain down smoothly and softly.

"Kou" involves more of diversity than the previous gem. The departure vision reminds us of the similar atmosphere to Discipline King Crimson, full of tribal, oriental modalities by xylophones or percussion. The middle part features dramatic, theoretical sound disclosure fully utilized with saxophones, bass, or drums. Filippo's saxophone playing tastes crazy awesome and definitely gives their soundscape and themselves incredible thickness and depth. The latter synthesizer-oriented quirky quietness strictly lures us into mystic temptation. It's sorta surprising for the audience that even such a non-essential component for them should be created and produced in a precise, elaborated manner. In the last part we can witness their impressive ethnicity drenched in a repetitive, hallucinogenic sound organization deeply in the surrealism. They would say such a tough reality must be over in near future, just by every single progressive rock fan all over the world.

Thanks to all NODO GORDIANO members for providing a fantastic dream like "H.E.X." on behalf of Progarchives.com.