AT-KING

This is the most commercial of their published albums, regarding the Swiss neo-progressive scene of the eighties. There are a lot of commonplaces and nothing sounds original!! They did much better when their second release - "Vision in the Dark" - was issued!! Not recommended!!

Very poor, amateurish and uninventive neo-progressive rock. This is just an abominable Marillion-sound-like album. Stay away. I hope the other albums are better... Anyway, I got rid of mine so you may find it second-hand so beware ! I forgot to mention the use of lousy drum machines. Some people just never learn...

Commonly regarded as ''the worst album from the worst band in Prog'', this EP (or short LP) is not that much disgusting. Some nice solos in ''After and After'', some catchy moments in eponymoys epic, the whole amateurish mood that I like in such Poppish Neo...but that's not enough for a good album. So that's true, it's very much like collector's item and don't bother getting this one (only if you're prepared for synth-pop beat in the very first track after intro!). 1,5 stars and no recommendations

Looking at some comments of the past this should be one of the worst albums on this site but if you look at the ratings without review it's not that badly awarded with several 4 star- and even a 5 star rating. But all in all an average of 1,93 doesn't give much hope for something great or at least nice. But I'm a neo lover, freak even and I decided to judge for myself by still buying this one (sales) despite an avoid and a not recommended by prog reviewers.

First (short) track suggests we're in the middle ages with some apparent sword fighting, well in fact so does the cover artwork so that's probably the idea here. An insignificant little song for an opener, an overture for the rest. Second is a real song but it's not very impressive and the indeed poor production becomes evident. Third, After and After, is somewhat better, more like a real neo sounding song with nice guitar and more variation than the slightly monotonous Turning Night into Day. Not bad this one coming close to a three star effort. Side one of this original vinyl scoring about 2,3 for me.

Second side opens with two short tracks. The first, Chinese Dawn, with hints to Chinese sounds is an instrumental, nice without being great. The second, March of Destiny, indeed sounding like a march with medieval tournament feel, is a sort of upbeat for the final epical title track, supposedly but also in reality by far the best track of this EP (this album is so short I wouldn't want to call it a real album, even for vinyl standards). This song is neo prog how I usually expect it, a genuine neo epical song with interesting compositional variation. Although I have to say the vocals are slightly annoying here especially when Patrick Fragnere does his high pitch efforts. This is not helping the song to a high level. Not by chance I believe the middle part of the song is the best as it is mainly instrumental.

In the end also this track can't save this EP from a two star rating. Side two scores about 2,5 for me making it a 2,4 overall so I will have to round down to two stars. Slight consolation for Deyss: I've heard worse in my life. So the reviewers were right and the raters not in my opinion although it will always still be a matter of taste.

Finally,the time has come for me to review one of the most-I would dare to say-hated albums in progressive rock history,DEYSS's ''At king''.DEYSS were formed back in late 70's by Govanni DeVita.Several live appearances will follow with the band considering Yes,ELP and Genesis as their main influences.DEYSS represented themselves to the public in 1985,releasing a short-LP,entitled ''At king'' with a running time just over half an hour.

Despite the aforementioned influences,just a couple of listenings are enough to bring one and only band to your mind: MARILLION.This is pure neo-progressive very much keyboard-oriented and a guest vocalist named Patrick Fragniere.What about the music?...Well,I could call DEYSS just an average MARILLION-clone...Opening track ''Meeting...'' begins with the sound of battling swords and ends with a decent guitar solo.The follower ''Turning night...'' is a total disaster.Awful drum-machines,very much pop- oriented and disturbing vocals compose a bad image for the band.Things get a lot better with ''After and after''.A ballad-like track with good chorus,nice keyboards,decent guitar solos but a little bit overlong.''Chinese dawn'' is another decent track in the line.A good instrumental with slow-tempo and interesting keyboard work.''March of destiny'' follows and things get worse again.Despite sounding quite original due to the ''marching'' keyboards,the result is very amateurish,even childish,with a cheesy sound.This short LP closes with the eponymous track and this is a really good one.Clocking just under 10 min.,this track offers nice vocal arrangements-despite Patrick Fragniere's lack in vocal range-,some complex drum programming(!),superb synthesizers/guitar work and overall a good neo-symphonic sound,a path the band should have chosen from the very start of this album...

So,what about the rating?...Despite my love for neo-prog and some nice moments,this album has many weak references...Almost total lack of originality,amateur sound and vocals,badly sounding drum machines and an evident inexperience in composition...So,this is an album mainly for collectors and die-hard neo fans...Genarally I'd recommend you to spend your time and money somewhere else,there is a lot much better albums on market than this one...

2.5 stars, really. Well, we all know how influential Marillion has become over the years, which is quite ironic, since they were themselves labeled as ´Genesis-clones´ with no originality when the general press critics first heard them. History proved them wrong, but I was quite surprised to realise that they were already being themselves cloned as early as 1985. When I saw the cover of this CD I knew it should be something in the vein of Fish era Marillion, and I was right. So originality was not Deyss forte. However, if it is good, I tend to forget this point. I like bands that plays in the same mold as Marillion, like that one from Canada, Red Sand.

At-King however, is more promising than really good, although they do have some nice stuff. The short intro The Meeting Of The Lords is a good introduction that, unfortunatly, leads to the weakest momento of the whole CD, the popish Turning Night Into Day. Not a bad song per se, but the very 80´s sounding eletronic drums and the chessy keyboards timbres are too dated to be effective. The very good guitar parts can´t save the day with this one. The singer´s voice is little too boyish here (maybe trying to sound like Jon Anderson instead of Peter Gabriel?). Unlike one reviewer wrote, the vocalist on this album is Patrick Fragnere, a guest, and not the one called Jester, who would join the band by the time they released their second CD.

Things get a lot better with After And After, a very nice prog ballad that works quite well all the way through (excellent keys and guitar). The next two songs are just short instrumental tracks tha again show how good Giovanni De-Vita (guitar) is, but ultimately are just sound like introductions to something that never comes. The last tune (yes, this is a very short CD, running at only 33 minutes) is their very best, the title track of the album is surely the longest and the most interesting of the lot: lots of tempo changes, mood swings, strong solos, tasteful arrangements and convincing perfomances of all involved. Great song! It really made me give the added half star in my rating.

All in all not a bad CD. Quite promising in fact, but it is highly derivative too. I´m curious about its follow ups. If you love the early 80´s neo prog scene in general, and Marillion in particular, you shold check this out.

"At-King" is the debut full-length studio album by Swiss progressive rock act Deyss. The album was originally a self-released affair (vinyl only) released in 1985, but the Musea Records label opted to released the album in the CD format in 1990. Deyss formed sometime in the late 70s and played the club market in the French speaking part of Switzerland, but it took quite a few years before they were able to record the material for "At-King", and obviously, since they had to release the album themselves, they weren´t able to find a label to release the album.

Stylistically this is neo-progressive rock in the vein of Marillion (just take a look at the artwork and it´ll already give you a clue), late 70s Genesis, IQ, and Pendragon. There´s no doubt that Deyss can play their instruments but guest vocalist Patrick Fragnere has a thin and pretty unremarkable voice and singing style, which don´t do anything positive for the music. He is not a horrible singer, but he doesn´t add anything to the music. The material is decent but not particularly memorable.

The sound production is honestly pretty awful. Trebly, thin sounding and featuring drums which either sound like they were produced by a drum machine or are played on an electric drumkit. On the positive side I´d mention the epic 80s keyboards/synths, which lay down the right melancholic atmosphere, and the expressive melancholic guitar leads. So there are some things worth listening to here. Overall it´s not a particularly great neo-progressove rock release and a 2 star (40%) rating isn´t all wrong.