AFTER THE FALL

Why I bought this unrated album to begin with I do not know. Well, that's not excactly true. In part it was due to the magnificent cover which caught my eye but the main reason was the track "Charisma" Iheard on Youtube, by the way the only track I managed to hear from the album. And what a marvellous track it is!

1979 is a year not wildly associated with prog, or so one might be lead to believe. The end of the seventies and beginning of the eighties have quite a few albums of great worth, among them Camel's "Nude" or Genesis' "Duke", to name but a few. I find the end of the seventies in som aspects as thrilling as the beginning. There's a lot of quality stuff out there.

So, "After the fall", then... It's a quite jazzy, affair, for sure. Fusion, yes, but not so much that it's pure fusion. "After the fall" is prog with a fusiony edge. The first five tracks are all quite nice. There's dreamy parts, aggressive playing and a spacey feel that's really nice and enjoyable. The main piece, though, the prize of them all, is the 12 minutes long "Charisma". The track really stands out, not just because of it's length but because of the elements within. The bass i wild and leads the music forward, relentlessly. I get thet feeling of being in space, floating around looking up at the stars, enjoyibg the dance pf the northern stars.

As a whole the music is really enjoyable bringing to mind equal parts Weidorje, albeit a bit more melodic, and more symphonic bands like Atoll or Ange, perhaps even Harmonium's "L'heptade". There are very sparse vocals (just one track and not much of it) but the album as a whole would have benefitted from being completely instrumental, in my opininion.

Conclusion: October's "After the fall" is a great symphonic, jazzy album of great worth. I really think it's worth a few quid and several spins. Maybe not quite a 4 star-album but I'll give it just that because of the track "Charisma" and the very enjoyable muscial landscape it paints.