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Fjieri - Endless

posted by: maurice on 4 February 2010

Forward

Fjieri consists of several progrock musicians from Italy with the help of the foreign musicians Gavin Harrison, Tim Bowness and Richard Barbieri. Richard Barbieri, the keyboardist of Porcupine Tree produced 'Endless' and also decided to take care of the keyboards on this album.

On 'Endless' Fjieri mostly operates in the field between progrock and postrock like Anathema does on their later work combined with new age stuff. It's mixed with eastern influences as you can hear in the first track "A Reality Apart" (the beginning of this song is like you’re listening to Grails) or in "Endless". Luckily the music is mostly instrumental because the big minors are the annoying vocals of Andrea Chimenti (in "Ad Occhi Chiusi") and Tim Bowness. The voice of Chimenti is comparable to an Italian who’s picking up girls. Typical example of the wrong voice for the wrong type of music. Nasal sounds and the speaking way of singing is what I dislike about Bowness’ vocals.

The progrock and keyboard tones are very easy listening and I really miss an outburst, for example the ones Porcupine Tree has. A clarinet and a saxophone are flirting with the other instruments in “Endless” and “Ad Occhi Chiusi”, but it never gets really adventurous. The sound is very sterile and the level of technical skills of the musicians is very high: still that doesn’t make an album enjoyable. I never feel the drive an album (whether it’s progressive or not) should have. Only in the end of “Breath of the Earth” I feel this drive.

To conclude: ‘Endless’ is an attempt with nice ideas without well structured songs (mostly) and bad vocals.

Rating:

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Related bandprofile: Fjieri