Filoritmia - Filoritmia (00) - 6/10
New Italian progressive, and quite good. They have the typical line-up of drummer, bassist, guitarist, keyboardist and vocalist. Though some guitar solos reminding me of Marillion can be found some places, Filoritmia are not possible to classify as neo-prog. There are enough tempo changes to make anyone happy. The synthesizer sounds are not too far away from imitating string mellotron sometimes, and that is of course a good thing. The record lasts for more than seventy minutes. It is clear that the musical and instrumental diversity isn't big enough to hold my interest through all the record. (However, I don't like critisising a record for lasting too long, so I'll not). After having heard bands using flute, saxophone, violin, cello, organ etc. lately, it's actually a bit of a downer for me listening to a band with a more standard rock instrumentation. But the keyboard makes up for part of it. The vocals are not bad, and in Italian. The lyrics sound quite good, but you probably don't care anyway. The record contains ten tracks, each lasting for five to ten minutes. As I almost noted above, they all sound quite alike - and they all have some exciting ideas, and some that are not particularly exciting. If the length of the record were halved and the good parts were kept, it would have been a very good record indeed. As it is, it's acceptable, decent and good-ish. The close to very good track "Il Mago" shows them at their best. If you want, you can download it at the band's home page www.filoritmia.it to hear for yourself that this is a record you might want to have.

Fish - Vigil in a Wilderness of Mirrors - 6/10
Brilliant vocals and lyrics, but simple music.

Fish - Internal Exile - 5/10
The opening track, Shadowplay, is good, but the rest is quite boring.

Flower Kings, The - Back in the World of Adventures (95) - 7/10
Quite good newer progressive.

Folque - Folque - 7/10
Norwegian folk-rock. Not particularly progressive, but worth having if you like folk-rock. They sometimes sound like a Fairport Convention ripoff with Norwegian vocals. I have, however, started appreciating this record more and more lately, having problems with getting the song "Reven og bjørnen" out of my head. In fact it's now one of my favourite Norwegian records.

Formula 3 - La Grande Casa (73) - 6/10
This album could be described as symphonic pop. The quality of the six ~5 min. songs is very uneven. Piano and acoustic and electric guitars are the most dominating instruments, and mellotron appears sometimes. The arrangements are rarely complex, and some of the songs ("Cara Giovanna" and "La Ciliegia non e di Plastica") are pop tunes with few traces of progressiveness. "Bambina Sbagliata" is also quite commercially-sounding, but contains an OK instrumental section. "Rapsodia di Radius" is better, though perhaps too "romantic" for some, and it is not particularly complex. Still, most prog fans should enjoy this. The two remaining tracks, "Liberta per quest'Uomo" and "La Grande Casa" are in my opinion very good. Both are well-composed and contain some fabulous crescendos. The album could be worth getting just for these ten minutes. Overall, this is a nice album with a relaxed atmosphere from a seemingly very talented band with too low musical ambitions.

Foxtrot - A Shadow of the Past (84) - 3/10
Norwegian neo-prog band with heavy use of synthesizers. English vocals. Too poppy.

Fruupp - Future Legends (73) - 6/10
 This band was influenced by a long range of styles, and that is both the strength and the weakness of this album. It starts out with a string quartet, continues in a more jazzy and rocking style, before sinking into some extraordinarily horrible rock and roll parts, waltz rhytms and folk (country music?), then pulling back into the rock style, etc. So this record is varied to say the least. After having listened a lot to Italian symphonic rock lately, I have learnt to disregard the horrible parts and enjoy what there is to enjoy. And what there is to enjoy here is for example the six-minute "Decision", which is something close to a masterpiece. It opens with piano and bass, continues with electric guitar, cello and violin, then moves into a tune which typically could have been made by Paul McCartney during his Beatles years. Then follows an interplay with bass and piano, before a marvellous, powerful guitar solo with string instruments in the background. It moves into a more quiet falsetto voice theme typical of Italian prog with some violins around, before the guitar goes crazy again and eventually finishes with the same theme that opened the track. All this in a matter of six minutes. The following six-minute track "Graveyard Epistle" is also wonderful, even including some Middle Eastern influences. But as already mentioned, there is almost no limit for how ridiculously naive and tasteless stuff you'll find on occasion in some of the other tracks. Take the six-minute "Lord of the Incubus" for example, which is a great prog piece almost made unlistenable by a minute of the worst rock and roll - or maybe it's country - immaginable. Oh well. At least, the record is average, good or great for the most part. With the exception of some use of electric guitar (and the horrible parts), it is all quite pleasing to the ear. Fruupp had an ability to write good and memorable melodies, and as long as the skip button on your CD player isn't out of order, you might want to get this. Rumors say that their later records are better, though.