THE TALL SHIPS

This album by It Bites, for me was a turning point. I've been a fan of the band since the late 80's and had assumed that they had disappeared into oblivion after Frank Dunnery left. They may as well have done.

It was upon finding The Tall Ships for sale whilst casually browsing the racks of a CD shop after Christmas 08 that my interest in Prog was rekindled. Since that moment I haven't bought an album that wasn't Prog, much to the dismay of my wife. And finding Prog Archives dot com online as a result has opened up my world to the wonderful delights of everything from Beardfish to Wobbler through to Spocks Beard and on to.... you get the point.

Now, it seems sometimes to me that It Bites are the band that so many Progers love to hate. The band are often at the receiving end of derision for not being this or that, or labeled as pop rock etc. In my view, the only reason for this is that they committed the cardinal sin of having top 10 hits at the beginning of their carrier. Definitely not a prog thing to do! Oh but on the other hand, who else from the word of prog was beginning to enjoy chart success at that time? The mighty Genesis! OK I'm not going to compare the two bands but I will say this, give me Calling All The Heroes over Mama, or Kiss Like Judas over Invisible Touch any day of the week.

Another thing I will say in their defense is that where some modern prog bands seem to start their song writing by gathering a bunch of time signatures, tempo changes and styles and try to chisel out a song from them, It Bites start by writing the song and then use the technical tools of music to emphasize the key points within each piece.

Anyway, with that off my chest I will continue on to say that this is a stunning album that doesn't miss a step. It seems to follow-up from where Once Around the World left off 20 years before, by-passing Eat Me In St Louis in its stride.

The opening track "Oh My God" is classic It Bites style, that at first sounded to me like Frank Dunnery had never left the band. I've since become better acquainted with John Mitchell's voice and guitar (what have I been missing!?!). The whole track is superb but just listen to it again from about 4 minutes in if you doubt that It bites qualify as quality prog. Similarly listen again to track 6 from 3.5 minutes in or track 11 from 7.5 minutes in. It's all there!

"Playground" is one of those songs that you have to hear at least twice each time you play the album and "Great Disaster", "Fahrenheit" and "Lights" all carry great hooks reminiscent to my ears of classic Yes. In fact there are a lot of great hooks peppered throughout most of the tracks on this album.

I can't give this album anything less than 4 stars. Since acquiring it there probably hasn't been a week when I haven't listened to it at least once.

I just hope there won't be another 19 year gap between this and the next studio album.