kev rowland
This is the second album from Japan’s KBB and one that I was looking forward to. I haven’t heard KBB’s debut album, but have heard some of their songs and I still play Akihisa’s album that he recorded with Natsuki Kido. Akihisa plays violin and guitar (and wrote 6 of the 7 songs); Toshimitsu Takahashi is on keyboards, Dani on bass and guitar and Shirou Sugano on drums. So quite an unusual line-up, and in many ways an unusual album: this is jazz-rock with very strong progressive tendencies. Curved Air is probably the closest comparison, but even that doesn’t really cover it.
It is an instrumental album, but that is primarily because there is just no room for vocals. In “Kraken’s Brain Is Blasting” there is a passage where all of the band take off in a tumultuous run with Akihisa just managing to keep in front. At times the others play a concerted piece which is at odds to the main melody, yet at others they are very much locked together. On “Slave Nature” there is a much more prog feel to proceedings with some great fretless bass just behind the lead instrument, whether it is violin, keyboard or electric guitar.
For those who enjoy complex instrumental music at its’ very best.