THE SANE DAY

Seems to be a concept album about a guy who goes into seclusion ("Sun Is The Devil") after his girlfriend breaks up with him ("A Love Story"). He decides to go back to the town he grew up in ("Mudhill") and on his way he stops at a place called Gooberville, and the story continues from there. BEARDFISH are from Sweden and play a seventies style brand of music. This record is hugely influenced by Frank Zappa and there are hints of GENTLE GIANT and KING CRIMSON as well. The band thanks PAATOS and ANEKDOTEN in the liner notes.

The first song "A Love Story" is almost 13 minutes long with some great hammond organ and lots of keyboard melodies. The theatrical vocals towards the end are good. Part of the lyrics are "Zappa sounds nice, "Apostrophe" then ""Grand Wazoo"". Yeah, I would say ZAPPA is an influence here. "Mudhill" features some funny ZAPPA like lyrics. "The Gooberville Ballroom Dancer" may be the best song on the record and the most ZAPPA-like as well. It reminds me of "Dancing Fool" and part of the lyrics are "He was a filthy mother f#*%ker, by the name of Dwight." This is a priceless song, and so funny. The guitar melodies rock out pretty good too. "Igloo On Two" is an instrumental with some great synth solos.The sound gets psychedelic after 7 minutes. More funny lyrics on "Tall Tales" with some good harmonies and organ.The final song of the first disc is "The Summit" a heavy KING CRIMSON type tune that is a highlight of the first disc along with "The Gooberville Ballroom Dancer".

The second disc has 6 instrumentals out of the 11 songs beginning with the title track "The Sane Day". This one has piano melodies throughout that create a pastoral climate. "Waiting Room" reminds me of GENTLE GIANT with the higher pitched vocals. And "Mystique Of The Beauty Queen" reminds me of them even more with the fast paced vocals and the way they are arranged. We get Zappa-like vocals towards the end of the song as well as some great guitar and drumming. "Ask Someone Who Knows" is one of the better songs on this second disc, a good instrumental with some outstanding organ work. This disc ends like the first one with a KING CRIMSON sounding song. An instrumental with some Fripp-like guitar.

I can't help but think they could have given up on a lot of the instrumentals on the second disc and put this all on one disc instead of two. Still this is a great recording. And if your a big ZAPPA fan I know you'll love this record.