Zip 4.5

Nowadays, the best expressions and attitudes of progressive rock are able to form eclectic mixtures, yet they mostly embrace independent striking values, being either classy, new-waved, drenched, alternative, powerful or sensible, underground or mainstreamed, artistically rooted or experimentally diluted. Up this kind of a scale, Zip Tang, a four-piece band from Chicago, prefers to play something from the classic influences, the nice modern art and the bit of indispensable jam and "new music" - in a manner that, currently, gets optimistic praises, plus in a musical attractive empathy that can score, further on, more and more important progressive qualities…

The reduced to a trio band still plays a melodic, American, modern prog, but rocking heaviness is more in the foreground, even if the music is already pretty playful proggig. Right on the opening track "Cigarette Burns", the Americans make one on "Punk Floyd." The closeness to the rock dinosaurs is not only evident in this piece, but also in the electric guitar solo, while the alternative rock scene lulls it The Prog of Zip Tang sometimes comes closer to the late King Crimson, while the harmony vocals can evoke associations with CSN ("Knowing"). Here and there are some beautiful crimsoid bumpy riffs and some psychedelic palpable ("Maniacal Calliope" Sometimes it rocks more straightforward ("Phantasmagoric Haze"), sometimes alternative-proggiger ("Plastique Hey-Zeus"), but these are just influences that enrich the bands already quite unique sound-cosmos…