ESTADOS

''Sur Oculto trio'' was just the beginning for these young Argentinians.The album got some positive reviews by the local press and Sur Oculto slowly reached the stages of Buenos Aires, making quite an impact.What of course followed was the recording process of a longer album, this would be ''Estados'' from 2006, released on the indepedent label Azione Artigianale.

In the vein of fiery Fusion keyboard trio NIACIN, Sur Oculto present a clever mix of dynamic Jazz- Fusion with endless breaks and some excessive energy around.The compositions are once more centered around keyboardist Fabricio Morás and his diverse work on piano, organ and synthesizers, flirting from Lounge Jazz to Funk and from Canterbry Prog to even keyboard- drenched Heavy Rock.Actually the first half of the album is quite great with dominant complex breaks, elegant smooth piano-centered passages and frenetic keyboard-led parts, mostly in a Fusion style, and always with the tight rhythm section of Sebastian Teves and Pablo Dalmasso supporting.Unfortunately as the album unfolds the quality drops, sounding a bit repetitive, at times filled with rather experimental parts and quite similar to the first half.All these just before the fantastic ''Coleman'', where Moras' dissonant grand piano are mixed with the most powerful performance of Teves and Dalmasso, to come up with the most mind-blowing composition by far.

This is a very hard style of music to follow and Sur Oculto did a very good job.Although the trio sometimes falls into the trap of repetiveness, ''Estados'' holds plenty of interesting moments to satisfy both fans of instrumental Progressive Rock and Jazz-Fusion.Overall recommended.