NOW

Can't say that I'm surprised to be the first person reviewing this album. It's excessively hard to find, and it took me many weeks of combing blogs to unearth a download. Sadly, there is good reason for this obscurity: this album is a horror. Not only does it deviate entirely from Frumpy's amazing output in the 70's, it replaces the glorious swell of keyboards and general psychedelic discursion with poppy balladry and choruses that are repeated, thunderously, again and again and again. The end result is something that Michael Jackson might have cut on a bad night, and bears no resemblance to anything the band previously recorded. Some lost albums are hidden gems, and some are cast into obscurity for good reason. Tragically, Now! belongs to the latter category, especially tragic since the album saw a complete reunited lineup of the musicians that originally made this band spectacular. Seek out at your own considerable peril.

Strange discovery I bought an Union CD called Now in 1991. Once I tried lately to extract the tracks to have them on my computer, the Frumpy name appeared. In France, I didn't hear from one or another band and I felt happy to find such an astonishong record. Mostly soul and funk with a touch of something else, prog and very european feeling. The most extra ordinary is the final track, "Now the gipsy is born", one of a kind of a track I encourage everybody to listen to, a masterpiece and a surprising one. The reste of the CD is enjoyable in miscellaneous styles. Three stars for the CD and five stars for "Now the gipsy is born".