ASYLUM

Like for their debut album, I would say that this work poorly aged. Their psychedelic music combined with strings (''Munich'') is hardly to be impressive to my ears. I also admit that I have never liked such orchestrations. It is a nice follow-up to ''Asylum'' which opens the album in a psyche way which is the main stream of inspiration of the whole work.

Now, a song as ''Munich'' is still very pleasant once you have made abstraction of these classic lines. Great organ, sweet vocals, upbeat rhythmic offer a fine musical cocktail to tell the truth. It is combined with more traditional symphonic prog (or classic prog as I would prefer to name this). But even with all these orchestration moments, ''Munich'' is a highlight.

I don't really like the short format of most of the songs featured on this album. It doesn't really fit this genre IMO. But of which genre are we talking about while ''Goodbye Post Office.'', ''Reprived'' or ''Survivor'' are being played? Jazz-rock or Canterbury probably.

This album is a major disappointment as far as I am concerned. I am desperately looking for a great and symphonic prog song in here. Can't find it really. I can cope with ''Lisa'' for a while, but frankly this is far to be a great track. Some good organ and a convincing guitar break save this mellow ballad for sure. Some fine flute notes as well. But this is hardly sufficient to make a great song.

There is not much to retain from this work, and the poor ''Summer Weekend.'' is nothing else than a weak and gentle acoustic psyche song without feeling. The long and jazzy closing track is not any better. I wonder where is the symphonic side of this band even if the second leg of the closing number features some fine and emotional vocals.

Two stars.