On The Raw – Big City Awakes, 2017, 🇪🇸
Barcelona is the basis of musical operations for the band formed by Alex Ojea on drums, Jordi Amela on keyboards, Jordi Prats on guitars, Pep Espasa on saxophones and flutes and Toni Sánchez on bass. The album contains a lot of what prog is, but blends jazz structures with distinctive elements in terms of electronics. Amela's Korg and Novation keyboards are a perfect link between Prats' guitar riffs and the pace of Espasa's solos. What I liked about this album is that it is full, but it is never “overplayed” everything is in its place, every single detachment, every single instrument, every single idea is where it needs to be, all supported with great taste by Ojea. Beautiful melodies, harmonic progressions that are rather immediate and pleasant even for a not particularly trained ear.
The ten-minute title track kicks things off, a very nice jazz rock number. On this album they prove that they can not only be fast, but can also score with calm songs. The best example of this is the beautiful song 'On The Raw', in which Espasa puts his stamp on with his excellent flute playing. The final title shows the band from another side. A female vocal quartet ("Les Fourchettes"), supported by AppleSmellColour musician Uri Mas, plays an important role here - and that works very well for them too.
The progressive quintet from Barcelona enchants their listeners with keyboards, guitars, basses, drums, saxophone and flute, with the two wind instruments in particular, playing a very important role and creating a global, progressive jazz-rock atmosphere. Progressive instrumental music of a special, very impressive kind! @ontherawband#ontherawband#prog#progrock#progressiverockmusic#progressiverock#progressiverockcommunity#progrockforever#progrockmusic#progrockcommunity#albumreview#albumreviews#progreviews#musicreview#musicreviews#progalbum#progband#jazzprog#progjazz#progalbum