STAND UP

First day random review from my collection, and it's a relatively recent addition for me, after rediscovering Final Conflict during lockdown. My initial encounter with this band was the "Redress the Balance" album many moons ago, which left me unimpressed and led me to ignore this band...but recently on the hunt for missed gems, the rightful high rating for "Return of the Artisan" fired my interest.

FC play neo-prog in a pretty straightforward style, melodic, with nods to Genesis and Pink Floyd - track T230 has more than a hint of "Home by the Sea" for example. Thematically, it's mostly social comment. Opener "Stand Up" is one of their best numbers, and the album closes superbly with the powerful and bombastic "Stop". "Signature in the Sand" is also excellent, bar a short disjointed passage. Sadly there's a bit of a sag in the album with "Days Gone By" and "Miss D'Meanour" - those rather pedestrian efforts being a bit of a weakness of Final Conflict's work.

The dual guitar and dual vocals of Donkin and Lawton provides a nice point of difference, and a sprinkling of nice female supporting vocal work also enhances the sound here. Overall, there's some real quality, meriting 4 stars when I overlook the 2 or 3 less interesting tracks. One for those with a penchant for neo-prog in a more melodic, rocky, style.

This one sits nicely alongside their excellent "Return of the Artisan", which I thoroughly recommend, and what I consider to be something of a flawed masterpiece, "Quest".