Fermata - Dunajská Legenda. 1980 Slovakia

Fermata's 4th album Dunajská Legenda sees the band moving towards the jazz fusion center, which was all the rage back then (though probably 2 to 3 years behind the west in retrospect). Opener 'Wlkina' is the typical funky fusion piece, that at first is off-putting, but has a fine mid section. The remainder of Side 1 is quite good, more towards an instrumental prog rock, with excellent melodies and songwriting. Side 2 again gravitates toward the fusion normality. But each track, no matter how trite, manages to squeeze in a few good instrumental passages. In the end, Dunajská Legenda borders excellence, but falls a hair short. A fine album that has aged well for me.

Personal collection
CD: 1999 Bonton

The CD can be a bit confusing if not paying attention. The first track 'Perpetuum III' is actually from their debut album (1975), and even though there are bonus tracks at the end of the disc, this title is not noted as such, and appears to be Dunajská Legenda's opening. It's incongruous to what Fermata were doing in 1980. The reason they did this is, up to that time, the track had not been reissued on CD, so they just added it to this album to complete the task. A kludgy solution at best. And the explanation as to why it hadn't been reissued prior is that the first album had been combined with their second album on one CD, but there wasn't room for 'Perpetuum III'. This situation did not get rectified until 2009, when the label finally decided on a 2 CD set instead.

Otherwise, this is a fine reissue taken from the master tapes. Those 2 other bonus tracks, as mentioned above, are nothing special however.