PRE

This is an excellent album made in 1973 and don't be fooled by release date, this is genuine 70's symphonic music that everyone was so used to at the time. The closest comparison would be Yes style in the time of Close To The Edge and Yes Album. Sometimes even vocals are so similar, I think you could fool a casual listener that "Ascetic Eros" is a lost Yes song; longer songs are also divided in multiple parts with different themes and moods similar to their fashion. Keyboard work may sometimes remind of ELP, and bowing guitar brings some diversity into the songs.

"Water Meeting", "Ascetic Eros", "Firmer Hand" and 19-minute "Ballet For A Blind Man" are all great songs and while I did compare them to Yes earlier, they are original and melodic enough and they sound refreshing to me, but I don't how more experienced listeners would feel. These outweigh the lesser shorter songs by a truckload so they shouldn't bother you. I did give 4 stars though cause they are mostly acoustic ballad oriented, and when listening to them in the order they don't really foreshadow how great the rest of the album is. But that is probably just nitpicking on my side, I really recommend this one.

Quite interesting album by this unknown band from Kentucky, who recorded this LP in 1973, but did not released it at the time. They soon broke up after this and the CD only saw the light of day more than twenty years after, in 1994. The first thing that strike me was the pristine sound of the CD, which enhances the performances very much. The label did a very nice job with the original tapes, I guess. But it is also easy to say why Pre was not put in the market in 1973: their sound is way too derivative. While the musicians are very good and the decent songwriting is not bad at all, they still had to work on it a little longer if they really wanted to get as far as they tried to here.

Pre is one of the many bands influenced at the time by two of the biggest groups at the period: Yes and Led Zeppelin (plus hints of Genesis and Uriah Heep here and there too). So the stakes were really high. And while the band had the chops to play the symphonic prog so few could master, they failed miserably to produce anything with a hint of personality here. Most of the songs are carbon copies of Yes around the time of Time And A Word and The Yes Album, but there are also, oddly enough, some parts that spring from Houses Of The Holy too (Who´s Laughing Now is pure acoustic Led Zeppelin, singer Alfred Collinsworth is even imitating Plant´s wailing and vocal mannerisms). But most of the time this band wanted so badly to be Yes all the way (and, yes, Collinsworth tries hard to be Jon Anderson).

Although I don´t mind that much for originality, a certain degree of a personal identity is necessary to anyone to stand out from the crowd. And this band had none. I guess with time and experience they could and would eventually outgrow their influences bringing out something new and/or exciting, since they were obviously skillful musicians and had the right influences. But, alas, that was not to be.

What is more interesting is that nowadays, with most of the great bands that inspired them long gone, the music here is far more interesting than it would have been during the 70´s. And I guess that any not too demanding classic prog fan will enjoy this album.

Rating: something between 2,5 and 3 stars. Nice, but clearly for the ones that love early 70´s symphonic prog and don´t mind the lack of personality.