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

What an incredible debut of this funny made bandname called Henry Cow. I've never heard a band before who was so much influenced by the avant-garde period of The Mothers of Invention (Uncle Meat, Weasels ripped my Flesh) as Henry Cow. Henry Cow took over the avant-garde/ free-jazz, polyrythmic and atonal absurdities and also much of the soundscapes of the Mothers. Well, it did them some good: the level of complexity and variety of themes was never before so high on a debut-record.

Henry Cow is not just a copy of the Mothers, but they build on the strong foundations of the Mothers. I'm glad that Henry Cow mostly was inspirated by the instrumental madness of the Mothers and less by the craziness in vocals.

Leg-end (yes, even the name this record is funny) offers some great compositions with fast inimatable complex parts and of more slow and more minimalistic free-jazz parts. The music is mainly instrumental, but on side two there are two vocal parts: one of them belongs to the trend of using voice as an instrument.

On this record a large variety of instruments can be heard, like saxes, flute, clarinet, organs, piano, violin and of course guitars, bass and drums. Imagine all the possibilities created by such an amount of instruments!

Well, this is a highly entertaining record which will be enjoyed by fans of the Mothers of Invention, and also by fans of the Canterbury scene (which also was much influenced by the Moters and therefor has a comparison soundscape as Henry Cow) who like complex and avant-garde music. This record is busy broadening the world of music by trying to create new complexities and (poly)rythems. We (prog-listeners in general) should thank them for it! Five stars.