“Basic Communication” is the Unicorn Digital debut of progressive rock band Xinema. These Swedes impress with an original opening track. The excellent, truly melodic vocals are the first thing one takes notice off. Within half a minute one also get familiar with the solid drums and the witty guitar solo’s. The intensity of the music and the vocals match perfectly. What follows are two rather mainstream rock songs that are heavily influenced by eighties pop music. Both are very predictable and pretty hollow actually. Things get interested with the first of two epics. “Speak To The World” impresses from start to finish. At times the band takes the easy way from one section to another (using an instrumental intersection), but overall this track is pretty well composed.

There are beautiful melodies and especially the seemingly basic guitar solo’s give you goose bumps all over. The closing section is simply incredible and remind me of Arena solo’s in the early years. With “Life The Way I Knew It, Xinema prove that they are also capable of writing solid short songs. The second epic “Ghost Of A Memory” is slightly weaker then the first. This is mainly because parts of it seem to be copied from Dream Theaters “Scenes From A Memory part II”. Nevertheless “Basic Communication” is a solid prog album with some highs and some lows. There’s enough to enjoy, to recommend you to check this one out when you have the chance.