FROM BOOKS AND DREAMS

Second album by the Scottish and German band (Allan Murdoch and Tam McGuigan were Scottish), From Books and Dreams sports an extremely creepy cover depicting a skull with a snake going through its eye sockets. Here the band takes on a heavier approach than on From Books and Dreams. Tam McGuigan, therefore takes on a heavier vocal approach, something like Don Brewer's vocal approach on Grand Funk's "We're an American Band" (not that Message sounded like Grand Funk, more like a heavier version of Nektar). "Sleep" largely consists of eerie spoken dialog, while "Dreams and Nightmares (Dreams)" is largely guitar-oriented jam with saxophone. "Turn Over" features a voice that repeats: "Turn Over". I believe the band intended that to be a lock-in groove that repeats until you remove the tonearm (given your turntable isn't automatic), but apparently the record company didn't understand that so it repeats "Turn Over" several times before it's over and your tonearm returns to its resting place (if its an automatic turntable). I own the original LP (with the unboxed "Bellaphon" logo on the label) so I should know this. There seems to be some confusion with the tracklistings, once again, seems like record company misunderstanding (no wonder they left the label after this album). "Sigh" (if that's the name of the song) features those really in your face hard rock vocals, with some amazing proggy hard rock passages. The last piece is the lengthiest piece and most proggy. The Mellotron makes an appearance with Allan "Taff" Freeman of Nektar providing it, as a guest. There are some spoken dialog as well.

It's obvious that, while Message appeared around the same time as Nektar, Nektar ended up as the much more commercially successful band. From Books and Dreams is truly worthy of your attention.