MUTTERED PROMISES FROM AN AGELESS POND

I've had this album for a few years and have concluded this is a good album to listen to when you're drunk! Why? Mostly because the band sounds here as you then feel, which is to say loose. The main criticism of the album is that the band pretty much through-out plays a little too loosely around the beat for the type of music they do. I like the music itself, of which the most easy comparison would be Genesis of Trespass-Selling England, but with a singer with a sound and ethic more in the Jon Anderson mode.

I've read that this album was recorded pretty quickly in less than ideal circumstances, using different studios which means that a couple of the tracks have a quite different sound from the others. Apparently their following album, Chasing the Dragon, was recorded with more care in a 'state of the art' studio. I've not heard it, but the music here is good enough to make me want to check that one out. For this one, 3 stars seems about right in my opinion, 3 1/2 if you've had a few.