FEAR OF THE DARK

The Sunday Times refered to ''Perilous journey'' as ''one of the best albums of the year''.It climbed to No.29 in the UK Albums Chart, while the track ''Heartsong'' received some serious airplay and reached No.21 in the UK Singles Chart.Same track was used as a signature tune on the ''Holidays'' TV programme of BBC.In 1978 Giltrap returns with ''Fear of the dark'' with his regular group supported now by multi-instrumentalist Graham Preskett on violin, female singer Shirlie Roden handles the vocal parts and Roger Hand provided the string arrangements.

This work shows a return to Giltrap's Folk roots, containing plenty of bucolic, acoustic parts, sitting comfortably next to the electric ones.The music comes like a cross between STEVE HACKETT's solo albums, SKY, maybe a little bit of STRAWBS and, of course, MIKE OLDFIELD.It refuses to abandon a strongly elaborate, sophisticated and mainly instrumental profile for the sake of the trends of the time, but simultaneously it sounds pretty accesible to a wide variety of music fans.With Giltrap setting up a true seminar on classic guitar, Hand providing a grandiose string-based background and Edwards offering the gentle tones of Classical Music through his keyboard and piano work, ''Fear of the dark'' comes as a nice proposal on soft, instrumental Prog Rock music, as certain tracks are entirely based on acoustic textures with mellow keyboard surroundings, while the electric pieces are mostly pretty melodic with calm solos, sporadic choirs, piano and keyboard waves and a confident rhythm section.This ones ends up to be closer to Orchestral Folk Rock than Prog Rock at moments, still Giltrap's composing talent and guitar excellence shines through, after all providing well-crafted, memorable tunes over a bunch of demanding arrangements is a hard thing and the man did a pretty great job.

Closer to the lines of ''Visionary'' than the more electric/Steve Hackett-like ''Perilous journey''.Soft instrumental Prog/Art Rock with folky and Classical underlines and some pastoral aesthetics.Recommended.