SOMERSAULT

Their third album, released in 1997 after the departure of Martin Orford & John Jowitt, has been quite harshly maligned by some as being a step backwards after their widely praised first two albums, 'More Than Meets The Eye' and 'Across The Water'. As a consequence, with the notable exception of the crowd pleaser 'Batstein', the album is often overlooked at concerts, which is to some degree a shame. Admittedly, on first hearing the album, you can't help but notice that the tunes aren't as complex and multi-layered as we have come to expect, and for me, the album is the poorer without Martin Orford's keyboards, but there are compensations.

Both the opening track 'Live This Lie' and the closer, 'Hear Us' benefit from being longer (nearly 9 mins and 10 mins respectively) and broader in scope than is usual for Jadis, each being able to move through different phases of the song to good effect. This is especially the case with the atmospheric 'Hear Us', which echoes like a heartfelt plea 'Never Listen - Can You Hear Me?' before closing the album with a grinding bass rhythm. Batstein, as mentioned is that track with perhaps offering the most musical complexity, and is perhaps the standout track for this, although 'Falling Away' is also by anyone elses standards a great track.

Where the album fails is that is sags in the middle quite seriously, with 'Speechless' not really getting going or issuing a musical statement which Jadis should really achieve without effort, while they have written better ballads than 'Tomorrow Always Arrives' and 'Losing My Fear' is quite possibly the poorest track they have ever penned.

In all, this album isn't as poor as some would have you believe, and is worthy of a place in any Jadis fan's collection, but isn't on the whole up to the standard of their first two albums, or 'Fanatic', released in 2003, which I would recommend all fans of light, tune orientated neo-prog to try out.