IN THE REGION OF THE SUMMER STARS (1984)

This is an album which inspires a lot of "Ifs" from me. If it had just been released a few years earlier... if the Enid and their mastermind Robert John Godfrey hadn't had such a turbulent career... if they hadn't been forced to re-record the album for CD reissue for ridiculous legal reasons... if any of these factors had been different, I wonder whether we'd regard the Enid as one of the top-flight prog bands of the 1970s. They might have had a shot, since they are one of a select group of bands - such as Genesis, Yes, King Crimson, or Gentle Giant - who could say that they carved out a style in the 1970s which was uniquely their own and could be instantly recognised as such.

Quite simply, no other band quite managed to bring together a combination of classical music techniques and styles, high-calibre technical proficiency and musicianship, and emotional breadth and depth as the Enid - and it's the emotional aspects of the music which are given priority. From the playfulness of the Fool, to the fear evoked by The Last Judgement or Death, to the warmth of The Lovers and The Sun, the compositions never fail to evoke an incredible depth of feeling that other bands of the time sometimes struggle to convey - and all without saying a word. At the same time, the emotiveness of the album itself can tend to shift in a rather saccharine-sweet direction, to an extent which I find becomes grating on repeated listens.

I highly recommend seeking out the original version of the album - I first heard the rerecording, which left me cold, but the original opened my eyes to what the Enid could do. Supposedly, Godfrey intends to do another rerecording, as part of a project to produce final, definitive editions of all the Enid albums; I'd be interested to hear how that turns out, though for now I will enjoy the 1975 version, vinyl hiss and all.