DARK SIDE OF THE DUCK

Yak were a particularly obscure band from the first wave of neo-prog who broke up in 1984 leaving only a few scratchy demo tapes to their name. Cornerstone of the band Martin Morgan was keen to make sure the band's compositions survived in a much more audibly palatable form, so on this debut release from the Yak - 19 years after the breakup! - he set about reconstructing the best of the demo compositions himself.

This multi-instrumentalist task he succeeds at admirably - in particular, I'm impressed with the way he's able to make the drum machine feel like a real drummer - and the end result shows Yak to have been a very interesting band in their time. As the band name implies, there's a big influence from classic-era Camel at work, which takes their instrumental Genesis/Steve Hackettisms a la The Lens in a new and interesting direction.

At the same time, there's no denying that this first pass at putting out some Yak content fit for human ears has its rough edges. It certainly sounds much clearer than some scratchy 1980s-vintage demo tapes would - but this also means that it's possible to hear the shortcomings of Morgan's equipment. He can go some way towards covering for this - like I said, the drum machine is quite well-executed here - but not all the way.