VOICE

This band reminds me some nice souvenirs and it is with a lot of nostalgia that I write this 1,900th review. I remember having seen them on a live broadcast of the Belgian TV. Pop Shop was the name of the programme.

Lots of great bands did appear on this programme and one of the only early Genesis footage available came from it. It has been widely spread over the Internet by now.

This Voice album is truly a dual work.

On the A-side of the vinyl, the four songs available aren't really brilliant. The only one which I could call as a good song is the rocking Keep Death Off The Road.

The B-side is exclusively dedicated to a magnificent symphonic prog epic. Almost twenty-one minutes of pure happiness, magnificent keyboards and superb emotions. The instrumental introduction is really fascinating.

In their debut, the band showed very strong vocal capabilities (all members having vocal duties). We'll finally get these as well on this great track. It opens on some sort of polyphony dear to GG, but with a Yes style (are you following me?). The acoustic part that follows holds pastoral and folk attributes with fine and light fluting. It is so much better than what's available on the first side of this album!

The pace is also catching up, but not for too long. So far, this epic is on the quite and very melodic mood. It is really a beautiful song: full of sweetness, tact, subtleness. Somewhat mellow, I agree, but still so pleasant to listen to.

Some bombastic mellotron moments are also worth the detour my prog friends (maybe just too short though). Circumstances is an extraordinary song. The vocal harmonies are simply brilliant. Some vocal section were certainly a source of inspiration for Queen in their early days.

It is a bit sad that the band didn't release more albums. Three of its members (Fergusson, Willis and Whyte) joined the pop group Christie (who released the smash hit single Yellow River). This marked the end of the Capability Brown story.

Five stars for the epic and two stars for side one. I emotionally upgrade this work to the four stars rating.