FOUNTAINS OF LIGHT

As the second album goes this was a disappointment. Few things differ from Starcastles debut album and this one. Fountains Of Light is another Yes clone album, no less no more. Very good clones, OK, but there was very little improvement over the first. Some reviewers here on PA say they added a few Kansas influences, but really, I can´t see a single one. Early Yes is their main source of input and the sole exception is their last track, Diamond Song, which is a little more commercial sounding, reminding me of Styx during the chorus (it was released as a single). Other than that Yes is the band Starcastle tries very hard to be. Everything here tries to emulate Jon Andersons´s band to the max. Even the vocal harmonies are perfect copies of Yes style, tones and mannerisms And this happened in 1977! Not the best time for a new prog act, specially without a strong personality. If Fountains of Light was recorded some five years earlier it would surely made much more impact.

Well, on the album itself: good musicians, a Jon Anderson clone as vocalist, some decent compositions. Again their music appears like half baked Yes songs: nice melodies, underdeveloped arrangements, not very bold ideas and they simply don´t travel the places their idols travel. It is all too restrained, something Yes certainly was not, at least at the time. There are not long solos and instrumental passages, which reminds me of Yes (1969) and Time And A Word (1970) in a way. The LP running time is very short too, clocking on just the 36 minutes mark. The frustration is that, as nice as the songs go, they all leave you expecting them to fly sometime, and it does not happen. Only Diamond Song (Deep Is The Light) offers some changes, but then it is the closing track. Too little too late.

Conclusion: once again a nice Yes copy, but a second in a row without much improving. I wonder if their third is a winner.

Rating: 2,5 stars.