AGE OF MADNESS

AGE OF MADNESS is definitely not an essential JANE album as the band starts to show some signs of tiredness and lack of inspiration. Moreover JANE seems to be between a rock and a hard place as they don't know which way to go musically! Be prog? going back to hard rock? don't forget we are now in 1978, this is no time to produce long ''epics''. So i guess our 4 musicians decided to please all their fans with a little of everything, ultimately denying them the possibility to enjoy the album wholeheartdly.

AGE OF MADNESS starts prog, ends prog but there is nothing proggish in the middle!The first 3 songs AGE OF MADNESS (PART 1), MEMORY SYMPHONY and AUROVILLE are pure spacey dreamy tunes once again reminiscent of early PINK FLOYD. The instrumental AUROVILLE could have even been featured on OBSCURED BY CLOUDS and no one would have been schocked. Those are not complicated compositions, JANE has never been know for extravagant arrangements , but the athmosphere is very nice as always with wonderful keyboards and tasty guitar playing.

All of a sudden, with song #4 LOVE SONG, we are going directly to California for a lazy slow paced ballad. Not bad, but kind of a wake up call after enjoying the first 3 space songs . In case you haven't been awakened yet, next is a hard rock song BAD GAME, not really inventive and the guitar riff is somehow aggravating after a while.

Back to California with GET THIS POWER, sounding like a psychedelic jam with harmonica and all!Pleasant tune but do i buy a JANE album to listen to this kind of music? not really! WITH HER SMILE is another mid-tempo rocker with no personality and soul whatsoever; That's what we name a filler!Good guitar as usual, but the vocal melody sucks!

Finally we come back to prog with the last 2 tracks: The wonderful dreamy instrumental MEADOW, a very delicate piece of music showcasing Wierczorke at his most sensitive followed by an ''encore'' AGE OF MADNESS (PART 2) which closed the album in a good symphonic way.

AGE OF MADNESS is a middle of the road album which has its (good) moments and some others i could have lived without. At least, they put the prog on one side and the mainstream rock all together on the middle.But that's definitely not a neccessary purchase for the prog connoisseur.

I haven't bought the following JANE albums because they are not easy to find in the first place, then i know they reverted to pure 80s hard rock later in which i am not interested. KLAUS HESS and PETER PANKA will go their separate ways with 2 versions of JANE like BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST. Peter Panka's JANE released 2 albums in 2003 and 2007 with no HESS on board and it has nothing to do with the music JANE produced in its heyday! Sadly PETER PANKA passed away 3 months ago last June.

2 STARS.

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