IDEAL STANDARDS VOL. 1

Contemporary Dead Finnish Music Ensemble is a group of seasoned Finnish musicians, formed in 2000, with an aim to revive the good proggy stuff from the 80's and 90's.Among the members we find ex-Stratovarius drummer Tuomo Lassila, Alamaailman Vasarat's and Höyry- kone's drummer Teemu Hänninen, bassist Rami Talja from Qumma Connection and also female singer Katja Sirkiä, multi-instrumentalist/composer Antti Pesonen and keyboardist Matti Jalava.The material for the band's debut was recorded and engineered between summer 2000 until summer 2004 and at Mellvox Studios and at the Finnish National Opera Studio and it was finally released in 2004 with the title ''Ideal Standards Vol. 1''.

The album brings to mind the spacey and grandiose approach of AYREON or the bombastic/melodic sound of EXPLORER'S CLUB and comes like an interesting mix of Space Rock, Heavy Prog and modern Neo Prog, where the tracks are carefully measured but at the same time quite demanding.The music relies heavily upon Sirkiä's crystalline vocals, Antti Pesonen's nice rhythm guitars and intricate solos and Jalava's diverse keyboard parts.''Ideal Standards Vol. 1'' is extremely lyrical, but it contains also plenty of good instrumental ideas with spacey synthesizers, bombastic tunes and melodic textures.The tracks are not particularly long but all of them are characterized by a fine balance between vocal moments and proggy shifting moods with heavier guitar passages leaving their place to atmospheric synth/organ-based arrangements, which have both a spacey and symphonic sound.Even a couple of them are totally instrumental with plenty of atmospheric soundscapes and occasional bits of technique.Overall the music follows a rather low tempo with a quasi-dark, intense atmosphere but the proggier material reveals some strong interplays and breaks.

The band partly succeeded in producing a strong modern Progressive Rock album with both melancholic and melodic music themes.Of course this is far from a masterpiece but on the other hand I hardly believe that a prog fan won't find something to like in this effort.Recommended.