Summary
A rather short album masterminded by duo Angyan and Daczi featuring as they say "Rock, jazz, latin, etno and little bit of metal...". For this I think they invented the name fusion. Or was it cross-over?

The music
The opener Caravan is rocky, groovy piece of music with some Arabic leanings in the melodic aspects of it. The playing is good and has the right groove. Melodies are not what this music is about very much, just take some jazzrock introduce some influences from the Middle-East of the Balkan and play it in the format of a rock band with some very slight metal leanings in the guitar work. The title track is dominated by a violin. Some terrific tension building here, fresh drumming and the melodic violin playing make for a really good track in which the guitar again introduces some metal influences, but the music continues to have some kind of subtleness that is not present in metal. War is not a terribly loud or rowdy piece, but it does have some rather dark rhythm guitars in there. The wailing violion is used for tension building and an organ is also put to good use. In a way I'm reminded of King Crimson more in idea than in particulars. Note that the violin is used in a quite repetitive way. The next one, Friends, is indeed a more friendly track, which is probably why I like it a bit less. Repetitive melodies, easy drumming, the violin still featuring strongly make for an easy going excursion into latin. The final part on acoustic guitar might remind you of Diethelm/Famulari. Folk enters the picture in Dance, but the guitars also return in this track, so it is not all light and friendly now. The tune is a merry one though. Plenty of breaks and variation in this one. Because of the good mix on this record, one can hear the bass very well and fortunately the bass player takes this into account. Acoustic guitar, easy going drumming, a few keyboards and some typical jazzy loung piano feature on sunny Smile. Maybe a bit too friendly in all. After all this friendliness we come to Meridian in which the violin rears up its head and hereby adds to the spice. The guitarwork is strongly riff oriented and not that interesting to me. Fusion is something else again, because of the Pink Pantherish interludes in the track. For the most part, I'd call it...fusion. The album ends with the short and relaxed Something For You. A bit of a of lullabye this one.

Conclusion
A short but entertaining album with good and clear playing. The style is rather like they say themselves: a combination of various styles, but now I have heard it I can say: always in a sophisticated way. Some tracks are not very remarkable, Smile for instance, but there are some really good tracks on this one, War and the title track being points in case. Here the role of the violin is very important. Although the appreciation for this music shuold be broader than that, the appeal of this album will be mostly to lovers of jazzrock and fusion.

Jurriaan Hage