Vitruvius is a prog rock band from Mexico and this eponymous album is their debut. The band consists of Oskar Villareal (guitars, keyboards), Armando Thamez (bass guitar), Ronnie Rodriguez (drums) and Dulce Robies (vocals). When I first listened to the album I immediately thought of the Finnish band Nightwish and the Dutch bands Within Temptation and The Gathering. This is of course due to the female vocals of Dulce Robies which dominate the sound of Vitruvius. It's a very dynamic four-piece and sometimes, in songs like Somewhere or Shade My Sight, they show the darker side of progressive rock. The album doesn't contain any ballads, just a short instrumental called Black Sphere, part 1, which is a rather redundant song filled with piano and strings. Most of the songs offer a combination of calm and heavy passages that are rather complex, but also very predictable. It's just as if you've heard these songs before and after a while all tracks tend to sound a bit similar. However, Vitruvius are still young, so maybe in two or three years the sound and their compositional skills will improve. Maybe we then can enjoy another great progressive rock band from Mexico. For people who like female fronted prog rock this will be a nice album to listen to. For me the best track is the long instrumental song Alchemist. *** Martien Koolen (edited by Peter Willemsen) Where to buy? |
