SUDDEN PRAYERS MAKE GOD JUMP

As the story goes, the master tapes of Jonesy's would-be fourth album got stolen by some nasty scoundrel disappearing in the night. That theft left Jonesy in rather dire straits, with the record company reluctant to givet hem a new go in the studio. As the band lacked sufficient funds aswell everything ground to a halt and Jonesy disbanded. All that seems true enough and it left us wondering how that album would have sounded like. Well, we can get a glimpse of what was to be expected by listening to this album of raw and unpolished recordings, supposedly some kind of demos, I gather.

Jonesy was a good, sometimes brilliant prog band from the UK. Not entirely groundbreaking they still managed to fuse jazz, folk and hard rock into a very agreeable blend of progressive music. I think their second album 'Keeping up' is a glorious piece of British 70's prog and their finest hour at that. While the third album lacked somewhat it still delivered high quality music to enjoy.

This demo-like album gives us hints of what to expect from Jonesy. The sound quality is below average, as is to be expected by some 40 years old reels of plastic. It sounds as though someone recorded a concert and released it as a bootleg. Quality wise it can be compared to your average soundboard recording. The sound is, however, not something to be bothered by. It is what lies beneath the dust and wrinkled plastic that is the real treasure.

The opening 'Dark room' is a fantastic piece of eerie progressive music. Very dense and powerful it delivers in spades. There is a frantic saxophone solo that is great. The vibraphone is amazing and provides a spacious rest amidst all the frantic instrumentation. I get a kind of Family-vibe in the vibraphone but apart from that it is all Jonesy.

'Running' is an okay track. As the title suggests it is a fast paced number and quite alright. The flute is terrific. 'Bad dreams' is a sort of slow song with some Beatles influences to be heard but in all it is a great track, actually. Dark and dense. '

'The lights have changed' is a jazz-rock song with good keyboards and is really a very good track. I love my jazz-rock so this track gives me great pleasure. In the middle there is a vocal part that I do not fully agree with but it is soon over, leading into a keyboard playing a nice tune. Good stuff.

'Old gentleman's relief' is a Beatles-ish/ late 60's type of song and really the weakest track. It is not bad but it is average. The ending 'Anthem' is quite a beautiful ending to this album. It sort of sums it up.

All in all this is really amazing to be listening to. Just think, here I sit listening to an album that really should not have been in existence. Yet here it is, like a blue print for something that really didn't happen. The thivieng bastard managed to grab the final product and how wonderful wouldn't it have been to be listening to that one, to hear it as it was supposed to be. As things stand this is all that remains and for me that is quite enough. Just like Cromwell tried to smash and destroy everything that did not agree with him, the thief failed in erasing these songs from the slate of time. Just like Cromwell failed. This album is good but not essential to proggers in general. If you like Jonesy I think you ought to listen, though. It is a great and quite moving testament to one of Britain's most underrated bands.