GLORY OF THE INNER FORCE

Hubba, hubba, hubba. It took me a good three years to find this album - I wasn't disappointed. Beer Klaasse's drumming is a bit off here and there (which is odd - he's great on the follow-up, Beyond Expression) and the sound is a bit threadbare, but this is a real lost classic. One reviewer summed it up as Camel meets Yes and they decide to play some fusion. Right! The Focus influence, especially with Van Nimwegen's Akkermanesque phrasing (which also owes a lot to McLaughlin, but he was only a kid so we'll forgive him) is evident too. Good tunes, which in symphonic rock often get overlooked - very tasteful and sparing mellotron, and some lovely, almost kitschy harmonic developments into the big climaxes, esp on tracks 1 and 4. Reading how much they sold back then makes it all the more amazing that it's taken so long for their qualities to be recognised. Not quite Focus- level, but in prog's all-time Top 20. And just where IS Van Nimwegen now???