DRAGON

Dragon’s debut album is another lost progressive gem that is awash with Mellotron and calls to mind the earliest of King Crimson.

Na just kidding, but I always wanted to say that in an album review. There is a bit of Mellotron though, but not an ‘awash’ level of it. And even though they do qualify as progressive, they don’t sound a bit like King Crimson. Or Yes. Or Genesis. Anyway…

Truth is I don’t know much about these guys and don’t know anyone else who does either. This is a pretty amateurish album from the artwork to the cheesy synthesizers to the gauche and sometimes just plain silly lyrics. But despite that don’t get the impression it has no redeeming value whatsoever, because it does. Just not much.

This is a Belgian band, that much is for sure. And apparently the keyboardist Christian Duponcheel went on to become some sort of well-known collector and expert on African art, especially masks. So if you're one of those people who has an African fertility or worship mask of some sort on your den wall, there’s a good chance the guy who plays the ‘tron on this album knows more about that mask than you do. For whatever that’s worth.

The music here is kind of hard to describe, although any description must include the word “amateurish”. I don’t mean that it is bad, just quite immature stylistically and full of abrupt and unexpected tempo shifts, weird noises, and vocal rants at really inopportune times. And the keyboards really aren’t all that great.

Parts of the album fit the very early seventies symphonic prog mold ala Spring or Polyphony or Apollo or any of those other b-grade bands who made okay music but on off-labels with poor production and uneven focus. Other parts sound like they were inspired by Captain Beefheart (and maybe they were). These are the ones where the keyboards are flowing along and the guitars are putting down a soothing and almost jazz riff, and then all of a sudden one of the singers starts in and sounds like he’s just a bit crazed which sort of ruins the whole thing. On “Lucifer” I think the guy actually starts quacking.

But there’s a fair amount of decent guitar, including on that track, and on “Gone in the Wind” which sounds all the world like a 1968 or ’69 proto-prog kind of thing like the first two Moody Blues albums. But then the eight-minute plus “In the Blue” comes along and delivers an almost psych piece with long, languid keyboard (organ mostly) instrumental sections and a tasty pysch guitar bit at the end. Both are okay tunes, but the mood shift is startling and makes for an awkward aural adjustment. Same goes for “Crystal Ball” but this time the sound is closer to early hard rock ala Captain Beyond or the Falcons or something. The guitar on that one is purely blues-influenced.

So in all this thing comes off sounding more like a sampler or a series of demo tracks recorded over a few years with different lineups, which it might be but who knows for sure. This was apparently a rare find for many years but Musea reissued it on CD a while back and it is easy to find today. Just not completely sure you’ll want to.

A strange offering, mostly due to the lack of any definitive style for the band, and because with a 1976 release this thing sounded dated as soon as it was put on the shelves. Who knows, with a little bit of management and luck this album might have taken off if it had been released in 1969, but by the mid seventies it didn’t have a chance. I’ll give it two stars but pick it up anyway if you run across it since Musea doesn’t appear to still stock it so it will become hard-to-find again some day and if nothing else it makes for a nice conversation piece. The amateurish hand-sketched cover and sleeve art will make people wonder where you got it.

peace