Monday 15 April 2013

Oxhuitza - Ozhuitza (2013)



The debut album from this Italian band who I believe has been released on Fabio Zuffanti's record label. Actually, I am wrong. The band has taken artistic directions from Fabio, but the album was released on Mirror Records in Italy.

Oxhuitza is doing instrumental prog rock where they takes a lot of influences from symphonic prog, King Crimson, RPI, fusion, prog metal and Gentle Giant. I would put them in the eclectic prog label as their music is pretty eclectic. They also knows how to paint big sound collages and comes up with some majestic symphonic hymns too.

I am by no means a fan of instrumental prog as I feel most of it is lacking focus and a focal point. I do though see what the band is doing here and find it far from lacking in focus. This is one of the better instrumental albums I have heard and it is far from dull and elevator music'ish. The music is in fact not easy listening at all as the great melody lines comes on a pretty regular basis. The music is driven by flutes, keyboards, guitars, drums and bass. A bit more flutes would had added more organic flavours and quality in my view. But this is still a very good album which surprised me a lot. It is most definate worth checking out.

3.5 points

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