AHVAK

When this album came out, there was quite hype around it in its homeland, Israel. Finally, a fine product released in an international label - it has to be *something*. Bad, good - I didn't know, at the time. But I did know that I would have to give it a try.

So I got it, and gave it a first chance. I wasn't surprised, shocked, and was hardly interested. "Another RIO cliché", I thought. Then I gave it few more tries during the week (hey, I paid 12$ for it, after all). Didn't do anything to me. Put it aside.

Eventually, the Israeli community of progressive rock started to pay attention to the album, and for the first time, I found myself interested to listen to it once again. And then I got it.

Review: ---------

This album is carefully played and arranged by the five musicians and their soundman (who has done a very good work, though quite annoying in a certain way). Composers Yarkoni and Susser worked hard to build 5 coherent pieces, using modern-classical composing techniques and attitude. Another piece is beautifully composed by guitarist Kotton. The ending track is 55 seconds of mixed noises.

The boldest tracks are definitely Bherta and Dust. The main motives of ahvak's music are violent and intensity. The music is 'on the edge' most of the time, but this doesn't conceal the fact that there are simply beautiful compositions in this album - ahvak knows how to build a good melody, a good RIO melody, and to elaborate it intelligently as well. The structures of the pieces are (mostly) well-planned and well-designed.

Things I didn't like about the album are the rhythm section and the sound.

The rhythm section (Sommer and Kerman) are playing accurate and right, but their attitude to rhythm is entirely different from mine - instead of interpreting the music in their own rhythmic way, they just add emphasizes and support the already-played beats. That really doesn't help the music. In fact it even hurts it.

The sound - well, it's very impressive, of course, but this accuracy is just too much for my ears. The recording is simply too perfect, and any life that was within the composition is now gone through the recording.

Eventually, this is a worthwhile, interesting record, which I find fun to get back to every once in a while. It tears down many of the RIO clichés (harsh dissonant, incomprehensible structure and logic, boring tonality [in a custom of atonality]), and that's just great.

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