MELODY

I'm happy to finally see Melody included in Progarchives. I bought Yesterlife on a recommendation, and glad I did. OK, so the cover is terrible, it's the main reason the album isn't known to a larger prog audience. In 1976 they released Come Fly With Me on the Pole label, which were more of demo quality (although be careful of the Tapioca version as it also contained material from Mahogany Brain). They got a deal with a proper label, Vogue and in 1977 released Yesterlife. A good portion of the album was actually remakes of material from Come Fly With Me, but now benefiting with a professional production. The music is dominated by the vocals of Diana Chase, apparently an American (which I don't doubt, given there is absolutely no accent in her voice, since English is her first language). Basically, nice, song-based prog there's often compared to the likes of Renaissance and Genesis, the latter coming from Gabriel-like male vocals from Patrick Frehner. Nice use of synths used throughout the album. The remakes are pretty recognizable from the originals, although the lyrics were frequently changed. "Merry Go Round" and "Welcome to Wonderland" were accidentally switched in the credits, as the album actually starts with "Welcome to Wonderland", then "Merry Go Round". The music is really nice, perhaps my favorite being the lengthiest one, "Wailing Wall". Not too often to find Jewish themed lyrics in a prog setting, but this is a rare example. Really love that one lovely vocal passage from Diana herself, plus there's some nice use of Mellotron flutes (too bad the Mellotron wasn't used elsewhere in the album).

Whatever the case, don't let the album cover scare you off, this is a nice album of semi-symphonic prog (no wonder it's considered crossover) with really nice female vocals. It probably won't set your world on fire, but worth your time.

Assumed they should be another incarnation of a British legend England, but surprisingly they've finished recording this material in November, 1975 already. Their definite masterpiece 'Merry-Go-Round', that features enthusiastic voices, dramatic plus psychedelic keyboard works, deeply heavy drumming and bass explosions, must drive me crazy and thoughtful.imaginative. Their days when progressive rock scene might be upon the phase of decline should be full stomach in another sense I guess, and even such a low-qualified, unpolished album 'poorly produced and mixed' (it says this album was created as a demo version for the following album and it might not be known why P'le Records released this material, but who cares?) can make the audience dream a fantastic dream with their rough but flamboyant passion for progressive rock. There are a lot of cases a well-refined album cannot impress us anymore, I imagine?

We can call this obscurity as another art rock salad mixture with heavy, psychedelic, and symphonic directions. Variation of soundscape cannot be heard enough but rough, fuzzy diversity in kinda 70s progressive cage we can find out via this album. Ethnicity or weird keyboard-oriented colourful psychedelia sound excessive especially in a short track "Death Rebirth". Bluesy battles of guitar and keyboard plays with dry-fruity female voices give us a hint of French-based fashionable vibes in "Viens Voler Avec Moi". There are other cool but poppy catchy song messages here and there (and pity that not all of them cannot be felt innovative) but well understood they might have got massively inspired by psychedelic rock / art pop vanguards, and it makes sense this 'demonstrated' work would have been dedicated to their pioneers. Basically unpolished but splendidly powerful intention we can notice via their mystic creation. Worth listening to.