A TASTE OF NEPTUNE

This obscure Canadian album has only one progressive song, that being the title track, but what a song! "A Taste of Neptune" is early King Crimson (Epitaph) meets early BJH (After the Day), a seafaring tale with a brilliant melody and washes of organ and string synthesizer. This is very emotional music and highly symphonic. The rest of the album is a mixed bag of conventional rock songs, with most of the better material appearing towards the end ("Aquarian", "Yet it Follows me Still"). It is worth noting that another largely faceless Canadian band debuted around the same time with an OK album that featured a great prog track, that being Triumph and their "Blinding Light Show". Of course that band emerged strongly from obscurity where Rose did not. This is more like 2.5 stars, but gets up to 3 because it has one long stellar song.