AXIS — Axis (review)

AXIS — Axis album cover Album · 1973 · Jazz Related Rock Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
Miler72
Axis was a Greek band, I thought I heard somewhere that they had backed Demis Roussous. I guess that's no surprise, given, for most of their career, they were a pop/rock band. In 1973 they released their self-entitled album which is of big interest to both prog and jazz rock fans. The group used keyboards, bass, drums, and some vocals, and while it sounds like guitar is occasionally used, there is actually no guitar, and instead fuzz organ was used in such a way to make you think it was an electric guitar. The opening cuts, "Waiting a Long Time" sounds more like a typical, but excellent hard rock song. You might think there's some guitar riffs included, but it's really an organ. Then towards the end you hear a jazzy theme of the song. They really get adventurous after this, with tons of jazz-influenced passages, some nice use of Mellotron, occasional reminders of King Crimson, one reminding me of Island-era Crimson, the other the Larks Tongues in Aspic-era. In fact that heavily distorted organ started getting me thinking of the heavily distorted guitars you hear on that latter mentioned Crimson album. They also go into Soft Machine territory in one spot, but I really can live without their take on the Byzantine church hymn, "Pa Vu Ga Di", it's pretty cheesy, but other than that, it's a truly wonderful, and obscure gem of proggy jazzy rock that I can highly recommend.
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