Dialeto - The Last Tribe

(CD 2013, 56:59, Moonjune Records MJR054)

The tracks:
  1- Windmaster(6:26)
  2- Dorian Grey(4:27)
  3- The Last Tribe(1:56)
  4- Lydia in the Playground(5:20)
  5- Unimpossible(7:47)
  6- Tarde Demais(3:40)
  7- Vintitreis(4:19)
  8- Whereisit(5:11)
  9- Sand Horses(4:07)
10- Chromaterius(3:42)

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Dialeto is a Brazilian trio founded in 1987 by guitarist Nelson Coelho, drummer Miguel Angel and bass player Andrei Ivanovic. They  play an instrumental variation of progressive rock. With this line-up Dialeto already made two impressive albums: Will Exist Forever (2008) and Chromatic Freedom (2010). Between 2010 and the recordings of the new album The Last Tribe, bass player Andrei Ivanovic was replaced by Jorge Pescara, who plays the touch guitar to create the bass sounds. By doing so he added new creative elements to Dialeto's music.

The emphasis of the new album is on the melodic guitar parts and the bass parts provided by the touch guitar. Nelson Coelho is a great guitarist, who doesn't need to play five hundred notes per minute to impress. His playing sounds relaxed and natural. The use of the touch guitar as in Dorian Grey tends towards King Crimson's music especially by the drum style in the vein of Bill Bruford during the double trio era. However, the guitar sound is quite different from Robert Fripp's or Adrian Belew's. Musically the bass is somewhere in the middle of Tony Levin's technics and Chris Squire's melodic playing, while the drums refer to Bill Bruford as well as to Allan White (Yes) and even to a power drummer like the late John Bonham (Led Zeppelin).

The guitar playing of Nelson Coelho is a mixture of different approaches: in Unimpossible he sounds slightly like Carlos Santana; in Whereisit the nasty riffs has touches of a heavier and darker version of Mike Oldfield, combined with the prog rock melodies in the vein of Alex Lifeson (Rush). I like this kind of music and due to the fact that most of the songs have their own style, the overall sound is very coherent and recognizable. Being a guitarist I would recommend to listen to the slightly distorted sounds in Sand Horse, the powerhouse Whereisit and the more fusion-like Unimpossible, just to start with. All of the compositions have a nice flow and contain melodic solos. The final composition Chromaterius strongly deviates from the previous pieces and I think that the majority of the listeners will find this one hard to listen to. On the other hand it's nice to finish with a more demanding piece.

All songs on this great album by Dialeto sound like natural jams; the spontaneity is kept in every composition. Moreover, Nelson Coelho is an amazing master on the six-string accompanied by a drummer to whom you have to listen very closely to capture his chops. The touch guitar instead of the common bass guitar provides the album just that bit extra compared to other trios. So, if you like instrumental guitar-orientated progressive rock and fusion, than you have to check out Dialeto!

****+ Pedro Bekkers (edited by Peter Willemsen)

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