BYZANTIUM

I was curious about this group. But when I found this LP by pure chance I was not very pleased. I was a bit disappointed because I heard they had some Gentle Giant influences, but aside from the first cut intro I found nothing here even close to what GG had done in their entire career. Not that Byzantium is bad group: you can see those musicians were very good and the arrangements are quite interesting and promising. The arrangements are, in fact, the highlights of the album: some odd time signatures, some jazzy parts, impressive vocal hamonies and things like that.

Unfortunatly they are not as skilled at the songwriting department. Their songs are very simple, derivative affairs. Nothing original and/or very convincing. No song here sticks on you r mind once you finish listen to them. Pehaps they could have improved if they soldiered on, but that was noty meant to be. As it is, you´ll find some average heavy prog stuff like the Wishbone Ash influenced Come Fair One or even some C,S,N&Y rip off (Trade Wind). The most prog tune is the last track, the 10 minute Why Or Maybe It´s Because (the title pretty much sums up the whole disc), with its BIG Moody Blues feeling. Still the song is just a poor copy of MB and the last part is just too tedious.

Small wonder there was no CD re-release of this album. Even if the band had some terrific musicians it cannot hide the fact they did not have the songs to make a good, outstanding work. The lack of focus and personality certainly didn´t help either. This is only for collectors and historians. 2 stars.