SPARTA

I listened from this Japanese band so far only this album and Kenso III, which is the better one of the two. According to their webpage their second one and Yume no Oka are supposed to be their strongest ones. I still have to try to get those ones. Still they're offering here some great symphonic Jazz fusion with twin keyboards and it's a very enjoyable listen.

The album opens with Good days, bad days, initially a rather mellow and dreamy piece which is shifting after 2 1/2 minutes to a more up-tempo theme. Not really a bad one with many tempo shifts. Bifuka has a very short acoustic intro with guitar and flute sound, then the track is floating along quite nicely with many theme changes. In The stone of the golden hair village the sound changes quite significantly and one can hear clearly that there is a different line-up playing now. The drums are sounding more aggressive and less dampened. Shunji Sægusa is presenting quite a good bass play in replacement for Matsumoto. In fact this is really not a bad one, but as well not very exciting, nice one for letting it run in the background.

GOOD album, but not an essential one (3 stars)!