THE GREAT AND SECRET SHOW

After SI Music/Cymbeline collapsed, a swathe of bands ended up somewhat in limbo, with significant chunks of their discographies left stranded without a publisher or distributor. For Red Jasper, the disintegration of their record company may have merely helped to confirm what they already knew in their heart of hearts was the case. Their final album for the label, Anagramary, had been finished, but they dissolved the band shortly after, with outside interests taking precedent.

It had been evident on Anagramary that something was awry, with Davey Dodds - formerly the life and soul of the band - no longer contributing as fully as previously, with drummer Dave Clifford pulling a Phil Collins to perform vocals on some of the tracks instead and with the mandolin which Dodds had made a trademark part of his contributions nowhere to be heard.

Indeed, on this reunion album, Davey is absent. The rest of the line-up who'd performed on the run of albums from Action Replay to Anagramary are present and correct, however, and Dave Clifford has completed his Collins Manoeuvre by taking on lead vocals full-time. Replacing Clifford on drums is Nick Harredance, who had previously been in Shadowland - the Clive Nolan-led neo-prog group that had been labelmates of Red Jasper back in the SI Music days.

This may have been an apt choice, since Red Jasper come back from hiatus to find that their sound has once again become narrower. When they started out on releases from their early EPs to Action Replay, you could hear a sort of mash-up of punk, folk, and neo-prog, all competing for time. Their peak came with A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Winter's Tale, which dialled back the punk side of things whilst keeping the folk and prog elements present and in balance - but on Anagramary it was evident that the folk was being drained off. The perhaps inevitable result of this was that their sound started to become a little more generic than it had been.

The Great and Secret Show reveals the completion of this process; folk instrumentation is basically absent, and bar for the odd acoustic moment this is very much along the lines of straight-ahead neo-prog groups. Losing Davey Dodds and his big personality behind the microphone was unfortunate, but to lose an entire dimension of the band's music is a crying shame.

The album - inspired by the Clive Barker novel of the same name - isn't terrible, but I found it largely forgettable as a result. Clifford as a vocalist isn't meritless by any means, but nor do I find myself particularly enthralled with his work. That would not be a problem had the folk dimension of the band's sound have been present as vividly as it was on Midsummer Night's Dream or Winter's Tale, but as it stands it is a further sign that Red Jasper's musical direction and my own tastes diverge from here on out.