Calling this album "Nexus 6581-II" was rather ambitious. If you look at the tracklisting - which is rather short - it would've been more appropriate to call it Nexus 6581 Lite or maybe Part 1 and a half. Because this is basically a single album, or "EP" for those of you who still remember those bakelite terms.

The first track, Bombo (the City theme) starts the album with a huge bang: powerful sounds coming from electric rock guitars characterize the entire tune. Plenty of great organss give it a definite progressive rock feel. The arrangement is very good, although a bit too busy for my ears. Maybe I'm just getting old.

Thanatos gets the expected chill-out treatment that I'm sure both Rob Hubbard and Julian Breeze would be pleased about. The performance is flawless and positively non-synthetic. The style reminds me of later Mike Oldfield albums, especially when the subtle flute is introduced. I also like how Reyn changed to improvisations on the piano just when the repetitive melody would've got boring.

Pimple Squeezer 6 (part 3) is also presented in the same style that the original was composed in, namely upbeat jazz. The very, very good piano playing is the highlight of this track for me, but the entire piece has that great lounge bar feel to it - listen to it on a lazy Saturday evening and you'll understand what I mean by that.

Tiger Mission has been getting quite an attention lately with PPOT covering it, too. Reyn, however, chose the much lesser known tune #5 for his album, which frankly fits his style better. Of the four tracks of the album this has the least acoustic feel to it, despite the fact that it is also played on many acoustic instruments. The most valuable part of this piece is yet again Reyn noodling around on his piano, dancing around the main theme and teasing the listener.

© 2004 by LaLa