SIX PIECES

I'm not giving this album five stars without careful consideration! But Six Pieces is The Enid at the very top of their form. Often overlooked for their better known recordings 'In The Region Of The Summer Stars', 'Aerie Faerie Nonsense' and 'Something Wicked This Way Comes', I think this is their best work. Its the last album with Francis Lickerish on board and after this the band shrunk down to a core of Godfrey and Stewart and introduced vocals on some of their tracks, which were not always very successful. What we have here is really symphonic, full of wonderful melodies and harmonies. The tracks are full of the early Enid trademarks - lush keyboards puntuated by brassy lead lines (probably from the Arp Odyssey), lilting piano, dual guitars and pyrotechnic percussion. The tracks each represent a different member of the group - for example 'The Ring Master' is percussionist Robbie Dobson (not Dave Storey as another reviewer stated), who was only with the group for a short time and is excellent on this.

The real shame is that this version of the group disbanded after this album which meant this material was never toured properly. Only 'Hall of Mirrors' has appeared in live form (on 'Final Noise') and it would have been great to hear 'Punch and Judy Man' or 'Ring Master' in a live setting.

This album reminds me of Locanda Delle Fate's seminal work of the late seventies - not in style so much as the fact that every instrument seems to be playing a melody all the time - no power chords or flashy show-off stuff here. Every note seems to have been meticulously crafted and it comes over as more of a group effort then their later works, although RJG domintes as usual.

The CD comes with a superb bonus track, the 16 minute 'Joined By The Heart' pt2, Steven Stewart's half of a two part composition (RJG's half can be found as a bonus on the 'Touch Me' CD). Its a great piece featuring a slow repeating bass note over which the track builds into a dramatic crescendo, and the best of the bonus tracks on their CD releases except for RJG's 'Reverberations', which I think is the best thing he's ever written (which is saying something!) and is a bonus on the CD versions of 'Region' and 'Seed and the Sower'.