AZ ÖRDÖG ÁLARCOSBÁLJA (DEVIL'S MASQUERADE)

I'm mostly reviewing Australian albums for the moment, but Syrius somehow ended up here for about a year in the early 70s, and for that short time became a very integral part of the local scene. While they were here, they recorded this album for Festival, and it's one of the best albums to come out of the local underground/progressive scene. Their music is rooted in a jazz rock tradition - in the vocal sections, they remind me a lot of Wigwam (but better!) - but their instrumental sections introduce a great deal of complexity in metre, modality (they use a lot of enigmatic scales) and rhythm, which brings to mind Zappa's more instrumentally-focused work, or Gentle Giant's more far out moments (minus the instrument-swapping) - with one hell of a funky rhythm section holding it together. Brilliant.