MORNING

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I found this album quite a long time ago and I still don´t know much about it. Only one review? I´ve never listened to their first CD but this is surely a transitional work as far as I can see. What they would come up with is anyone´s guess, since they broke up soon after Morning was released. It´s hard to find out where they were really aimind at (believing they were aiming at something, of course). The CD is a mixed bag and lacks direction.

Let´s see: they start with the 60´s influenced, beatles-like, Morning Song. Not an outstanding tune. Then jump to the whimsical, storytelling, of The Princess And The Minstrel. Third track Wind becomes more symphonic, with strong King Crimson influences on The Dragon´s Maid (my CD has this track so badly mixed I think it was a defective copy). Track four, Carnival, is totally Crimson´s Epitaph with some changes here and there. Then comes the short instrumental Schlittenfahrt , that leads to the strightforward blues rock Puppet Master. The acoustic, folkish, Tommy´s Song continues this saga without adding much - like most of the stuff here it goes nowhere. Josephine reminds me of one the Monkees tunes.

Ok, they were good musicians and could actually handle a wide range of styles, but the band at the time could not decided what they were going to. Nor come up with real strong original material. The best track is a King Crimson reharsh. Production is only average. This is definitly for collectors and fans only. 2 stars.

That proto prog albums even exist post 1970 is mystifying to me, but I suppose that is a pitfall of our man made classification system. I guess it would be more accurate to say that proto prog seems like an embryonic sub genre to me, and I can't fathom why a baby would continue to crawl when it now possesses the faculties to walk and run. Nor surprisingly, apart from a few landmarks, the lion's share of such late model recordings are of little interest. "Dawn" fits snugly into this grouping, with similarities to all the usual suspects (Cressida, Fantasy, 60s psych) but nods to the Moody Blues and King Crimson.

Probably the most unique piece is "The Princess And The Minstrel", with spoken verses and harmonious choruses that recalls "The Balance" by the Moodys but an essence of medieval minstrelsy (in both subject matter and style) redolent of The Incredible String Band. Both "Dragon's Maid" and "Carnival" offer the remaining highlights and the most pure expression of an erstwhile "modern" progressive voice, thanks to some powerful mellotron blasts and majestic vocals that suggest Greg Lake in his King Crimson suit. But I do not mean to suggest that this is top drawer paraphernalia.

The remaining tracks are dull, limp snippets of psychedelia with no relation to their predecessors. It's hard to conjecture the evolutionary path of this album, and whether the group found its new voice and shoved the best material up front, or simply couldn't muster 40 minutes of more adventurous material so tacked on ersatz and passe tunes as filler. But the net result is the same - half a good album and half a poor album adds up to a Wind that, while not foul, fails to invigorate.