IN CONCERT - MERLIN, BARD OF THE UNSEEN

Not another prog concept album based around the legend of King Arthur I hear you scream! Well yes but thankfully its actually very good. The album on which this was based originally came out in 1981. 'Merlin' was not a great success partly because the band were releasing something conceptual at a time when 'prog' was at its lowest ebb but also it failed miserably on the artistic side, Kayak hedging their bits and doing a side of AORish songs totally unconnected to the main theme. So all these years later they decided to put this right getting rid of the boring unconnected songs and expanding the main theme to a full blown concept album.

This DVD is one of the accompanying concerts featuring a 'live' orchestra cleverly back projected and various dancers to add extra vibrancy and colour. This could have ended up a load of cheesy nonsense but thanks to the sheer skill and professionalism of this fine band it never becomes so.Tom Shepernzeel perhaps holds it together with his excellent keyboard playing although the rock solid drumming and twin guitarists is also very welcome. The mixture of female and male vocals also works extremely well with occasional duets. Yes it does sound cheesy but in fairness they always play it with a bit of a smile and as a result I find its easy to accept this theatrical approach.

Overall there is nothing to fault on this other than the maddening fact that the extra bonus features includes some interviews with the band members in Dutch and with no sub titles darn it!