ACQUIRING THE TASTE

With their second album, the band started their chain of masterpieces; which "Acquiring The Taste" certainly is.

I don't know where to start. This album is coherent, track after a track is telling us stories, the overall mood is slightly dark. The vocal harmonies are showing the edge of insanity. The songs are patched with great melodies. Sometimes synth drones are slowly descending, shifting the whole song key almost without noticing - you only notice a slight shift inside your brain. Great vibraphone moments. Great violin moments. How did they manage to play all those instruments? They're able to raise the song on another level so subtle: "Black Cat" is going to an extreme - varying from a violin solos with a firm background to a moment where, suddenly you realise you are listening something dissonant and avangarde.

"The Moon Is Down" contains some great delay effects (best after Jean-Luc Ponty) - and the guys know when too keep it simple when necessary. Synth timbres are astonishing - they're able to sound like a wind singing instead of howling, it's really difficult to describe.

The record is 36 years old right now - and it doesn't sound dated at all. There are some Hammond organ sounds in "The House...", but they sound weird and out of the box. This record is ahead of it's time - but there is no musical style yet that will absolutely verify it. We have to wait for another geniuses to be born. In a meantime, we have an extraordinary story, so unique and powerful that the word "masterpiece" is becoming a misnomer.

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