Summary of history:
This is a sampler of the Hungaric Periferic label containing music of interest to those into progressive music.

The album:
Budafok is an instrumental track with a pretty laid back feel. Tranquil strumming with acoustic guitar, slowly gaining momentum, into an electrical guitar climax. Pitty about the electronic drumming though. Nice track.

Ancient Light makes its progressive intentions clear from the start, with a strong symphonic intro led by guitar. An early bridge takes us into the vocal part, which is pretty much dominated by the female vocals. Despite the clear voice, these vocal parts can't really keep my intention, being pretty repetitive musically, this being somewhat aleviated by the guitar lick in the back. The lengthy instrumental section however does bring the spark back that was there at the beginning of the track. Still, I'd have to say You and I is not my cup of tea.

Morning Call start with a jangling guitar in a somewhat mysterious, eastern atmosphere. From this the track slowly progresses (or regresses, if you so wish to call it) into a trance like track, with some drum 'n' bass rhythms. Sort of okay if you're into that stuff, but definitely outside the progressive realm. And when you think you got it pinned, the track turns out to have vocals, followed by nice and gentle guitar solo. A track that has a bit for everybody, but possible not enough anybody.

Walking The Path starts pretty much guitar directed, somewhat jazzrocky. This association is strenghtened by the later arrival of one those electronic pianos used so often in jazzpoprock. From this things get worse, as far as I'm concerned, leading to several minutes of more or less pointless jazzrock.

The clear piano that opens Chameleon reminds me of something, but before finding out of what after@all take off. The riff guitar haunts the rest of the band into gear. The speed is kept up and the wall of sound is there like never before. The best track of the sampler. You can also find the review of the after@all album in these pages.

Farewell is a calm, slowly building clarinet centered track. Despite its tendency to slightly nag, the slow and careful build up of the track keep that effect at bay, for at least most of the track, of course helped by the beautiful flow of the melody and the oh so fitting percussion. Like it.

Lord Of The Vineyard revolves around the interchange of a neurotic flute and a somewhat cheesy organ with whiny guitar. The jazzrocky meandering is briefly broken by a piano intermezzo, a reprieve, only to return to the flute and later a guitar solo, that strikes me as mostly noncommittal. This is absolutely not my beverage of choice.

Old Love has a certain bluesy feeling about it, although its instrumentation and the clear sounding vocals belie this. The laid backness and slow pizzicato keyboards make this a pleasant track, with the clarinet reminding me of Another Day, that hit song of a couple of years ago. This mood is broken only briefly for a beefy yet fitting guitar solo. Nice.

2001/1 is as modern as its title might suggest. This starts a person whistling accompanied by a drum 'n' bass rhythm and some other percussion. Apparently the guitarist accepts the call to take over the lead, as do a keyboardist and xylophone player after him. It fails to capture my attention.

The first time I saw After Crying they blew me away. They are so different from what we normally see on progressive stages. But every album of theirs I hear leaves me disappointed: there is so much potential but it seems to come into full flow in only a couple of tracks. The fact that this sampler contains Struggle For Life, for yet another go seems to support me in this opinion. The brilliance of the track is beyond any doubt, though.

Conclusion:
Periferic has managed to open quite a rich source of progressive and otherwise interesting music. This gives you a pretty nice overview of the newest developments, of which after@all is definitely the most interesting, but Kada, D Sound and Toth Bagi Band also put themselves on display nicely. And of course After Crying, despite my reservations, remains a force.

Roberto Lambooy