THE HENRY COW LEGEND [AKA: LEGEND OR LEG END]

"Prog" has many manifestations. The mixture of rock,classical anf jazz which is typical of it can pull in a number of directions. If you don't care so much for the flamboyant arrangements of classical themes and bombastic musical rhetoric this might well be the album for you. Here, all the various stylistic elements are truly integrated to make a modern cross-genre chamber music. Its supposedly not easy music and its true it makes little use of musical cliche but it is not abrasively avant-garde in that its full of gentle and melodic passages alongside more agressive and improvised sections. This album always sounds longer than it is. Usually, I'd conceed, this is a bad sign indicating boredom but I have loved this album for over 25 years so I think its and indication of the amount of detail and ideas that are crammed in. Perhaps I should say its hard to believe that so much has been crammed in so short a time. Every Cow album has a lot going for it but they were never again as focussed as this.