AREA — Caution Radiation Area (review)

AREA — Caution Radiation Area album cover Album · 1974 · Jazz Related Rock Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
Miler72
This was the second album by Area. Jan Patrick Djivas had left the group and joined PFM (L'Isola di Nienti was PFM's first album with Djivas). In comes Ares Tavolazzi, who is a fantastic bassist in his own right. Here Demetrio Stratos only sings on one song, and the rest is him doing the occasional spoken dialog and funny sounds. The band also takes on a less accessible, more experimental direction. "Cometa Rossa" is the only song in which Stratos actually sings, in Greek (he was Greek, after all). There are plenty of great fusion passages that would keep any fusion fans happy. "ZYG" and "Brujo" features some rather avant garde passages with some great jamming fusion passages with synths and electric piano from Patrizio Farisello. I really love how "Brujo" ends with Stratos giving some spoken dialog and some really tripped out synths. "MIRage? Mirage!" is really out there, lots of tripped out passage, screaming voices, but even here they go into fusion territory. "Lobotomia" is simply a bunch of noise off synths.

Perhaps the biggest thing that might turn off some people about Area is their politics as they were openly communist (in fact a hammer and sickle can be seen in the gatefold of Arbeit Macht Frei, their debut). Regardless, I didn't let their politics get in the way of my enjoying their music, that same goes to Robert Wyatt and Henry Cow (who were also communists, the latter also showing a hammer and sickle on their Western Culture album), because Area certainly made some of my all-time favorite fusion/prog albums. Caution: Radiation Area is great, but if you're new, you probably should start with Arbeit Macht Frei or Crac!
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