A SEER IN THE MIDST

Maybe this wasn't the place to start my exploration of Yoke Shire, but here I am. This really does feel like the mixed bag that it is, with only the first and last tracks being uniformly good thanks mostly to imaginative keyboard work and melodies. Very heavy folk influenced prog, with a lot less of the celtic aspect than I might have hoped for, and mostly wretched cretinous vocals, which luckily do not appear that often. It seems that, in spite of the huge migration of the Irish to Boston harbour, very little of the subtlety that marks ancient Emerald Isles music is manifest in area bands, and Yoke Shire is no exception. It does fit the progressive label however, especially in tracks like "The Brook, the Mirror and the Maiden", which pretty much hits on the best and worst aspects of the group in its 20 live minutes. Some of the CD is unlistenable in terms of atmospherics gone awry, and for that I dock a half star. Without having heard their debut, I am guessing that you should start there if you are one of those people who simply must get the Yoke.