PUBLIC FOOT THE ROMAN

A little hard to review this one. They play with conviction, and the Wishbone Ash like twin guitar leads definitely catch the ear and are pleasant enough, but the end result is perhaps worthy of 3 and a half stars, but definitely not a great record. Nothing is bad here though, and if you like Pink Floyd and slight references to early Yes this is a pretty good attempt at spacey mainstream rock by good musicians who don't quite know how to write really great songs. And this is the dillema. Had the songs and lyrics been better on this album it would be a classic not just of the era, but of 70s prog tinged rock period. The problem is that the songs sound unfinished and the lyrics are not very good or intelligent, often too gloomy and derivative (especially of Floyd). Another set back is pleasant, but not great vocals. The harmonies are nice at times, a little grating at others because they start to sound like The Grateful Dead if they were Cambridge graduates instead of stoned hippies! The lead singer does a decent job, but hardly has a great voice. Even with these set backs, you can enjoy this album every once in awhile, but it isn't a knockout. Looking at the sleeve and intriguing titles you expect a prog classic, but instead you get a reasonably good rock album with some spacey progressive leanings. Theres's some great passages mixed in with the ones that take the easy way out, particularly the beginning and close of the album ("Land Owner" and "Decline And Fall"), but in between are some songs that don't quite work as well as they should. There is nothing bad here, and even though the singer isn't great he isn't bad very much of the time either. Perhaps if they'd been around longer or been able to devote more time to this album it would have been a minor classic. With a release both in the States and England perhaps things were expected to happen for Public Foot The Roman, but they didn't take off. If you can come across this for not too much money it's an enjoyable album and if you like Pink Floyd as I do some of it may be very enjoyable. I am not going to say this is a great record or a classic, but it's not bad at all either.