CHRONOMETERS

Chronometers is a collection of unreleased recordings from the mid 70s by the Muffins. The album has tracks of all sizes, starting with the title track epic at 22 minutes, down to tracks which barely last for half a minute. The album was released by Cuneiform, and gives listeners a good idea of what the Muffins were doing before releasing their excellent debut. The pieces are generally pretty good. Some parts of tracks, however, don't do too much for me. For example, the title track has random bits where they inserted clips from The Wizard of Oz or re-enacted them themselves, and it just doesn't seem to have much of a point to me. To be fair, it does add a certain dream-like, surreal atmosphere to the track, and it doesn't detract much from the piece, but it doesn't add too much for me either. I definitely prefer the epics on Manna/Mirage. The album as a whole is similar in style to that album, but it seems less focused, less well-prepared than their official debut to me. The album seems to me to be just a tad bit too long as well, as it's almost full to the brim. Some of the tracks feel like they could have been cut, but then again a lot of the tracks after the epic seem to run into each other to make multi-track epics of their own.

Overall, it's an enjoyable listen, but not one that I think is quite as essential to every prog collection. Obviously if you're a fan of their style of music you'll want to snap it up while you can, but for new listeners of the band I'd suggest starting with their debut. Four stars from me.