JESTER

3.5 stars. MACHIAVEL were from Belgium and it seems like they could do no wrong in their home country. Just about everything they released was eaten up by fans, no matter the musical direction they took. Outside of Belgium they were pretty much unknown. This reminds me of a couple of Canadian bands who could sell out pretty much any venue in Canada in their primes, but they heard nothing but crickets south of the border, and everywhere else in the World.

"Jester" is album number two for these guys and a new vocalist and lead guitarist are introduced here. This record from 1977, and the followup "Mechanical Moonbeams" from 1978 are the two albums Prog fans will be interested in. It's so strange how much this sounds like Neo Prog when this is 1977. So a Proto-Neo-Prog album then? Was MARILLION at all aware of this record? The title, the Fish-like vocals at times. GENESIS is probably the biggest influence on this album, to a fault at times. And yes SUPERTRAMP for the piano, but again it's dangerously close to being a copy.

"Jester" is a 46 minute album with seven tracks. They do extend these pieces, but again this is so proggy. That half star is for that, along with the long list of instruments that everyone plays including the drummer. Very impressive. The new vocalist is quite talented as well, besides singing he plays flute, clarinet and sax. We do get mellotron on the final five songs but it is used more as an extra layer or for atmosphere. I was surprised that Andy over at Planet Mellotron gave this 4 stars. He's not usually into this style of music, but he's a fan.

I like how adventerous this can be, and the nostalgia of the GENESIS vibes, but there's too many tracks that I just feel are "okay" and nothing more. I'm just not connecting emotionally other than the odd GENESIS moment.

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