THE MYTH OF INDEPENDENCE

Finally all these efforts by Jump to make an impact were rewarded.Cyclops label, impressed by the band's last and quite good album, decided to give Jump a chance and signed a contract with the band.Time is money and the English sextet recorded the first album for Cyclops (and fourth overall) in 1995, this was entitled ''The Myth of Independence''.

The high expectations of the Cyclops' crew did not become exactly fullfilled with this new Jump album.The band did not abandon the style of the previous album and that is a good thing, the bad news come from Jump's inspiration and songwriting skills, which lack a bit compared to ''...and All the King's Men''.The style more or less remains the same, light Neo Prog mixed with more straightforward rock attitude and a very English flavor among the music tunes, reminding a bit of MARILLION, JADIS or RED JASPER.The vocals of John Dexter Jones remain always at a very high level, what this album needed actually was a more challenging and dramatic musicianship compared to Jones' lovely and flexible vocals.The rocking tunes are stereotypical with not anything new to add, the slightly more demanding tracks and short instrumental parts have something to offer, either some nice breaks or series of decent guitar passages, but the keyboards are still sporadically used.

Not as good as ''...and All the King's Men'', but also far from the worst efforts of the band.Still I would recommend ''The Myth of Independence'' only to fans of accesible Rock or Neo Prog lovers...2.5 stars.