GEVECHT MET DE ENGEL [AKA: THE LADY'S BACK]

"Battle With The Angel" is the second album by Dutch group Flairck. This is one of those records that you can find in EVERY recordshop in Holland for less than 3 euro. I bought this together with their first record after seeing its inclusion here on the Prog Archives.

Just like the award-winning first record, this album features great instrumental songs with a variety of acoustic instruments. The musicians are all professionals, the sound quality and dynamics are superb, the coverart is beautiful. So what's not to like? Well, that being the lack of interesting music. Especially after hearing the first album. While I LOVE the first record, this album seems kinda dull and pretty annoying to me.

The album starts with Oost-West Express. A really nice song with great flute melody. It reminds me a lot of Voorspel in Sofia (Foreplay In Sofia) from the first record. Next comes De Vlinder which is based on a Irish tune. Played really well and the sitar creates a peacefull atmosphere. After those two great songs you get a totally forgetable small piece followed by De Stoomwals. Stoomwals is not bad at all. It shows another ability of the musicians to spread a flute melody over an array of flutes. Unfortunately, this song is also quite forgetable and the ending makes it EXTREMELY annoying. De Stoomwals is one of those songs that draws you in and makes you at ease but then suddenly wakes you from your sleep just to show how pretentious the album is. I get it, it's called Stoomwals (so you hear STEAM)...

The other half of the record consist of the title track Battle with the Angel. For me this is really a song that doesn't go anywhere. Just bits of some good ideas intertwined with filler. I played this side 5 times over just because I really wanted to like it. But I don't.

Last: the logo really bothers me! The first record had a good logo that you could read: Flairk. On this album the logo looks forced symmetrical and it totally unreadable. Who writes a ''k'' like ''dz''... Also the ''F'' could be seen as an ''H'' os even ''Sh''. Actually for a really long time it thought this band was called Flairdz. I would see this album a LOT in Dutch recordstores and I always called them Flairdz.

Conclusion: The album starts with 2 great songs: Oost-West Express and De Vlinder. Next are just some forgettable or annoying songs. If you just got interested in this band you should start with their first album: "Variaties op een Dame" and I suggest to stay there! Their first album was something new and exciting and really well crafted. This album is just a continuing of that style but more watered down. And the band is called Flairck, not Flairdz.

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