MOSQUITO

On Mosquito Psychotic Waltz made quite a turn, away from their earlier complexity, shedding a lot of the shredding and exuberance in return for focused and at times even groovy songs. Depending on how you appreciate the preceding albums this might either be your favourite or least favourite PW album.

This album has gone through quite a change in my appreciation. At the time of its release it fought for the top 1 in my 1994 year list against Skyclad's Prince of the Poverty Line (a band that is surprisingly absent from Prog Archives by the way). I was huge on grunge at the time and on this album Psychotic Waltz almost sounded as if they wanted a piece of the big grunge-cake.

In the ensuing years I found myself listening less and less to this album as it failed to continue captivating my attention. I though every track to be quite alright still but too straightforward and sterile. I missed the big harmonic soloing, the adventurous song writing, the passion and most of all the unique vocal approach of Buddy Lackey. On this album he mainly just sings along with the riffs instead of bringing entirely different melodies.

Now hearing it back for this review after a good 5 years without playing it the disappointment is even bigger. Despite the good song writing, the continuous slow pace and lack of daring ideas on this album make it sound weary and exhausted.

On their next and final album they would gain some of their flashing extravaganza back. Here I'm torn between 3 and 4 stars. Maybe I should check out the remaster. With just a slight improvement to the sound I might still upgrade to 4.