MODERN MASQUERADES

John Mason replaced Stephen Houston for this Fruupp album, which I consider to be a mild return to form after the previous album. Steering towards the mainstream crossover end of the symphonic spectrum, the band manage to incorporate other genres into their music rather better this time around (with a jazz jam breaking out in Mystery Might), perhaps thanks to the guiding hand of Ian McDonald (who produced the album and provides saxophone interjections). The major difference in sound is the way the keyboards are a bit more downplayed this time around, possibly a result of the band needing to ease John Mason into the lineup whilst cooking up new material.

The second side of the album is the weaker one - Mystery Might and Sheba's Song are a pretty decent prog fare, but between the torch song of Why and the cabaret of Janet Planet it feels like the band stuck a little filler in to fill things out. The first three tracks, however, are a crossover-pastoral tour de force, the first two tracks integrating Fruupp's cabaret flirtations much more smoothly than usual and Gormenghast being a full prog rock epic, with a hint of Canterbury about the edges and a direction not unlike that Camel would take in the later years of the decade. Here John Mason's more subtle keyboard style works to the album's advantage, allowing the other instrumentalists in the band a chance to take the spotlight to an extent they hadn't before.

It's a shame Fruupp never recaptured the high standards of their debut, and I'm inclined to blame their crazy work schedule - recording four albums in the space of one and a half years, during which they not only had to find a replacement keyboardist but also undertook tours with hard-working megastars like Genesis and Queen. I don't think any band could be seriously expected to write high-quality new material under such a gruelling schedule, and it's no surprise to me that the band burned out. Had they taken things a bit more slowly, who knows where they could have gone?