The Grey Room

To many this album, released in 1977 and reissued on digitally remastered CD dated 1997, could seem like a spoof of major early 70's Prog bands - most obviously Yes and Genesis (an early version of Genesis were called "The Garden Wall"), and snippets of Supertramp, Argent, ELP, Gentle Giant - you name 'em, they're all there lurking in the Garden Shed like some long forgotten albums! I'm surprised the aforementioned artists, especially Steve Hackett, didn't go rushing to their lawyers to sue for blatant style theft!! This is such an obscure album, though, but it's all done so brilliantly, and it's sooooo Prog! The sound quality is excellent, the songs are good, the cover is dead "jammy" (sorry i couldn't resist that!) - you have to like it!

The first song "Midnight Madness" is the most obvious pastiche of Yes melding with Genesis, a short piece "All Alone" starts with a beautiful lonely echoey piano solo, "nothing i do seems right", maybe they had a bust up in the studio... but came back again for the twelve minute "Three Piece Suite", a nice mellotron intro followed by Yes style harmonies. Actually if Yes had done this Three Piece they wouldn't be ashamed of it at all, some catchy hooks - it works nicely! The guitar solos are unashamedly the Hackett style, heavily orchestrated with layers of mellotron and piano.

"Paraffinalea" starts with a Bach style keyboard intro leading to obviously Yes style choral arrangements, not sure what the song is about, with references to "lying/dying in the roadside" and "a bomb in his pocket.."..??? "Yellow" is a much slower "mello-er" arrangement, leading up to the longest track on the album " Poisoned Youth " at 16 minutes. This amazing piece starts off with a short drum break , bass line and mellotron, into a Crimson style theme and Yes style staccato vocals. The song has some great hooks and arrangements, and seems like a mini-opera of dramatically shifting moods and patterns!

Despite all the aforementioned references to other more well-known bands this is a great album by excellent musicians - it is a shame they had to follow these influences so closely, especially the Hackett-style riffs, the Yes bass lines and Yes vocal arrangements when they obviously had the talent to create something great of their own! Nevertheless a thoroughly enjoyable listen, and, if you can live with it, an essential Prog addition!

Posted Sunday, October 29, 2006, 14:27 EST | Permanent link