Short Reviews [Rafael StCruz - 2018 - "Synchronicity"]

Apparently Brazilian guitarist Rafael St Cruz grew up listening to Wishbone Ash and Beatles, before going on to discover Rush and Iron Maiden. He started releasing EP’s in 2012, acting as a multi-instrumentalist with a guitar basis to most of his work, bringing in a few guests when he felt it was right, and this his first album is a compilation taken from those EP’s and was released at the end of 2018. All the songs are fairly lengthy, with even the shortest “True Conspiracy” clocking in at nearly six minutes, while the longest of the six songs is “The Humanity Path” at 12:31. The end result is an album which is okay, but never really much more than that. There are hints at times of things moving into interesting directions, most notably on “Beyond The Horizon”, but they never really come to fruition. Possibly he needs to consider working with a band where ideas can be bounced off each other, as opposed to working in a home studio. The production and sound are reasonable, but it is the lack of real ideas and musicality which means I cannot imagine myself ever playing it again.