Progressive Savage

After first listening to Flagship’s Maiden Voyage I considered it a pretty lousy recording instead of a highly praised album I’ve read about. But somehow I kept coming back to this CD and in time I even begun to like it. Obviously I wouldn’t call it a masterpiece of symphonic prog–maybe because of lack of any substantial experience with the genre–but rather a funny crossover prog, somehow similar to Metal Majesty or Gamma Ray’s pop-like songs from Power Plant (It’s A Sin and Heavy Metal Universe, or rather Happy Metal Universe, for example).

Judging from what I’ve heard so far from the Hungarian progressive scene I can say it’s unique and definitely cognisable, mainly because of the use of many non-rock sounds like piano, string and brass instruments and mostly avoiding the heaviness that the whole Western progressive world have already adopted. One of the bands that populated Hungarian progressive landscape of the 90s was Townscream, formed by Vedres Csaba after he parted ways with After Crying. Nagyvárosi Ikonok, which translates to Metropolitan Icons, is the band’s only album written mostly by Vedres Csaba–of course–while lyrics, in Hungarian, came from Egervári Gábor. All the tracks of this piano driven album are bound by a common theme: the big city and it’s comparison to countryside.