LAST AUTUMN'S DREAM

It is difficult to give a good summary of the first Jade Warrior albums because the band explores many directions, but at least with Last Autumn's Dream, just judging by the cover, you can at least see glimpses of the direction they were going to take with the series of albums with similar covers and largely mellow instrumentals.

To start with the least interesting, early Jade Warrior had the tendency of having hard rock songs that they fortunately ditched later because they were not good on that. In this album, you have Snake and Joanne as good examples of what could have been left off the album and probably no one would miss. Snake even has some interesting touches in the intro and the outro, but both seem to be recorded in a lousy manner.

It is completely different story with A Winter's Tale, May Queen, Demon Trucker. They are also on the more commercial side, but they are well-crafted songs. One of the strenghts of early Jade Warrior, in my opinion, was their use of electric guitar as complementary instrument to their sound, and this feature is present in these alongs, along with the usual flute and percussion combo. They are all enjoyable.

Then, there is the great songs, starting with Dark River, which is a long instrumental with mostly percussion and flute, then Obedience, which is another great instrumental with excellent guitar work (lots of different guitar tracks providing different effects) over the percussion.

Then there are the two great songs with vocals. Morning Hymn is very mellow with excellent flute and vocal melodies, and points toward what Jade Warrior would do as a duo. Then Lady of The Lake, which could be lumped in the "more commercial" songs of the album, but it is extremely well crafted.

Finally, to close the album, a great choice. Borne On The Solar Wind is another instrumental that points towards what Jade Warrior would do later, mixing oriental influences in the fold, mainly through the electric guitar motif that is doubled by flutes and strings, freeing the guitar to make a countermelody. A short song, but a real gem.

The first impression is that this album is not so good as other consistent prog albums, but on the strength of the best songs, it is more remarkable than many albums with sound great but have nothing really special.