ONE LIVE BADGER

Some comets fade from view. Some roses wither on the vine. Some straights get trumped by a full house. That pretty much describes Badger, a heavy prog project that made it out of the gate in good time but stumbled early.

If you have heard of Badger, you probably came to them in one of two ways.

1. You saw Roger Dean's striking cover art in the record store and bought this album on that basis. 2. You were exploring the amazing amount of projects that ex-Yes members were involved in and followed Tony Kaye to this album from Flash.

So to mention the hoary chestnuts about this album first. Yes, Kaye helped form this group after leaving Flash (which was probably not entirely his own idea, btw.) Yes, this was recorded live, with the same equipment and at more or less the same time that Yes recorded Yessongs. Strikingly, this album actually has a bit better sound quality.

So what does the music soumd like? 'it is most definitely heavy prog belonging to it's era (the early 70's.) Looking at the other reviews on here, i saw two comparisons that seemed cogent to me. The first was to Manfred Mann's Earth Band. While there are not that many similarities to their more progressive stuff, i could definitely hear Badger covering a rocker like Davey's on the Road Again. The other comparison was to Traffic, which is fairly close and which I wish I could claim I had thought of.

For me though, when I think of Badger's sound I think of two more obscure groups, T2 and Fantasy (which is somehow categorized as symophonic here.) These are not earth-shattering, revolutionary bands, but then neither is Badger. The first album is fun though. Live, energetic and interesting it is. I'll give it three stars because it is likeable even though there are many better things worth searching out.

Don't waste your time with Badger's other release, White Lady. This is the one to get.