The sixth album from this Czech-Slovakia band.
The band was a quartet with a lineup of string synth, arp, organ, percussion, drums, bass, guitars, pianos, mandolin, bass and vocals. The vocals are in the local language.
I reviewed their 1974 album Modry Efekt and Radim Hladik back in May 2011 for ProgArchives and that album really made me interested in this band. But the years went by and it took me eight years to review the rest of their albums.
The band was forced to change their name from their English name to a name in their local language on the orders from their Stalinist rulers at that time. No Anglo-US band names were allowed. Tape trading on bad cassettes was these countries influences from the west.
But Blue Effect, aka Modry Efekt, continued as a band. They had got rid of their jazz orchestra and re-emerged as a purebred band instead.
Radim Hladik is a massive impressive guitarist and one of the better ones from behind the iron curtain. He and Marian Varga from Collegium Musicum is the two greats from this part of Europe.
Back to this album........
Gone is the jazz from this album. What emerges here is a mix of symphonic prog, fusion and RPI. Yes, Rock Progressive Italiano. There is a lot of passion in Radim's guitars. There is a lot of passion in the music on this album. A lot of melancholy too.
The music is great from the first tone and Svitanie offers up some really great symph/RPI/fusion here. Even the vocals are really good. Radim's guitars and the great melodies steals all the attention here. Even on the long songs.
This is an album you need to have in your collection.
4 points
No comments:
Post a Comment