ANIMA MUNDI: I Me Myself (PROGRESSIVE ROCK): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

We had left Anima Mundi on a wiser album, full of compositions that, to be less stretched and flamboyant than in the past, also kept enough to satisfy the symphonic progressive rock fan. Three years later, after a long maturation of two years, the Cuban quintet released a fifth album in the form of an ambitious concept dealing with the challenges posed to human beings by technologies and their procession of warlike ideology and existential solitude.

Led by Roberto Diaz on guitars and Virginia Peraza on keyboards, the band proposes with "I, Me, Myself" a generously melodic score, structured by three epic titles that draw a wide variety of sound landscapes. From the melancholy typical of "High Wheel" irrigating the first acoustic minutes of 'The Chimney, The Wheel And The War', it should be remembered that it will underlie almost all of the eighteen minutes of this first track, metamorphosing according to the genres touched, from symphonic to jazz, passing through a heartbreaking aerial development in the form of a tribute to Pink Floyd's 'Echoes'.

In keeping with the album's theme, 'Somewhere' and 'Train To Future', with their aggressive and technical introductions enhanced by instrumental duels between guitar and keyboards, are hemmed in with a darkness never seen before, to which the presence of two new members (Michel Bermudez on vocals and Marco Alonso on drums and saxophone) from the metal scene is undoubtedly not foreign. Thus "Train To Future" develops in a climate of urgency conducive to the unrestrained presentation of different melodic themes and rhythmic phrasing, before giving way to delicate harmonic progressions alternating tensions, resolutions and soli full of feeling.

On the other hand, the three shorter pieces are more playful, taking advantage of the groove sense of the rhythm section on 'Clockwork Heart', using Michel Bermudez's ever correct and expressive vocal on the ternary ballad 'Lone Rider', or having fun with contrasts throughout 'Flowers', whose saturated introduction and acrobatic soli did not announce the final organ solo, which will undoubtedly evoke, for its stilted notes, Genesis' 'Supper's Ready'.

In conclusion, it is good to know that "I, Me, Myself" is announced as the first part of a future triptych. And since, in a register that is at once progressive, symphonic and metal, this album is one of the most accomplished works of the quintet, this can only augur well for the future. - Official website

ANIMA MUNDI

I ME MYSELF

AUTOPRODUCTION

PROGRESSIVE ROCK