TALES OF ARDOUR & DECEIT

Tales Of Ardour & Deceit is the last album so far from Danish symphonic prog rock act Etcetera ( or ETC as it says on the cover of the album). Drummer and co-founder Johnnie McCoy left the band in 2004. Leaving only composer and multiinstrumentalist Frank Carvalho left. The band is in fact a two man band. They use guest musicians when vocals or saxes are needed, but besides the drumming Frank Carvalho plays everything from guitars and bass to organ and synths.

The music is very influenced by the early seventies prog scene and bands like Genesis, King Crimson, Yes and Gentle Giant. Just listen to the song melody and the voice from guest vocalist Michael Munch on the opening 16:23 minute long epic The Song Of Marsh Stig. It could have been Gordon Haskell ( King Crimson) in disguise. This is mostly an instrumental album though and there are only vocals on The Song Of Marsh Stig and the second track called Songs. The music is very pleasant with some great melodic guitar playing and lots of vintage synth and organ.

The musicianship is excellent and it´s hard not to be impressed with especially Frank Carvalho. His guitar and bass playing abilities are just as good as his keyboard playing and his compositional skills are excellent IMO.

The production has the right seventies sound and it fits the music perfectly.

Fans of early seventies symphonic prog rock should definitely check out Tales Of Ardour & Deceit. If you´re anything like me and love symphonic prog rock because it´s great music and don´t give a rats a.. if it´s original as long as it´s quality music, you´ll probably enjoy this very much ( Etcetera is not a clone band by any means though). This is actually the only Danish Symphonic prog rock band that I know of. Most progressive Danish bands from the seventies have either grown out of the sixties beat or blues rock tradition or the jazz/ fusion genre and not much has happened since ( this album is from 2003). As a Dane it´s kind of sad that our country haven´t spawned more progressive music but Tales Of Ardour & Deceit is definitely something that I found was worth my time. I´ll rate the album 4 stars. These are not 4 big stars though and I could have given the album 3 big stars instead but I´m allowed to be a bit patriotic now and again as long as I tell you that I am. There´s only one problem with Tales Of Ardour & Deceit. It will probably be very hard to find anywhere. I´ve never seen it in any store and the copy I have used for this review is actually a loan from the public Library in Denmark. It´s too bad as this music could surely give a lot of people a good experience.