SYMPHINITY

Although technically WINDCHASE is a one shot band that released their one album SYMPHINITY in 1977, it is in fact really the 3rd album for Australia's first symphonic prog band Sebastian Hardie with a slight lineup change. That band had been around since 1967 and only managed to put out a couple albums and had many a lineup change. It was Mario Millo (guitar, mandolin, vocals) and Toivo Pilt (keyboards) who decided to record this album by adopting the name from the second album for the band name of this one. SYMPHINITY took the Camel and Genesis pastoral style of symphonic prog and added a more jazz-fusion oriented sound to the mix. The results are a little hit and miss but when it hits it hits quite well.

This album caught my eye because of the really cool album cover and the title of the album is a clever agglutination of 'Symphonic Infinity.' Unfortunately like their previous band Sebastian Hardie they seem to continue their knack for being able to cleverly cut and paste various influences together into creative ways without adding much in the way of any originality. After so much time one would think that an idiosyncrasy of sound would find its way into the whole scheme of things but WINDCHASE happily goes down previously treaded grounds keeping things somewhat predictable but never dull and always well played. I have to admit this was a bit of a grower. It hardly blows you away upon first listen. The obvious Camel meets Caravan approach with some Brand X type of jazz-fusion in play is all nice and good but if you're expecting Earth-shattering performances here then you'll be sadly disappointed.

However if you like an interesting form of prog lite that has some beautiful melodies that induce fluttering mellotron action and nice drawn out jams, then you might enjoy this indeed. Although the drawn out lead track 'Forward We Ride...' seems a little long for its own good, other tracks like 'Gypsy' and the excellent 'Lamb's Fry' fair well. I find this album very worthy indeed of my attention but wish it was a bit more consistent in its delivery and it lacks that extra oompf that makes an album truly special. 3.5 rounded down