ARDOUR

ETHOS was another one of those US bands from the 70's who tried more or less successful to emulate the kind of symphonic prog done by the seminal British ones. I've read somewhere that they claimed to be America's answer to KING CRIMSON, but IMHO the presence of this influence is rather minor in their music. Instead the most obvious influence of them was certainly YES, not only due to the Squire-alike Rickenbacher bass but also the hymnic compositions and heavy use of different sorts of keyboards like piano, Mellotron and synths. Slight early CRIMSON reminiscence I can only detect in the quirky guitar riffs of Everyman and by the overall frequent use of the Tron. Most of the compositions are rather intricate and playful having a multi- part structure. ETHOS combined all these influences with a rather US-typical looseness giving them a bit of their own style and leading to a quite enjoyable result.

HIGHLIGHTS: The already mentioned Everyman and The Dimension Man, an excellent versatile composition with great rhythmic section.

CONCLUSION: As some of my co-reviewers I wouldn't regard this album here as an essential one but nevertheless as a quite good one and worth to be checked out by fans of this sub-genre. Definitively a nice listen and worth for 3.5 stars I would say!