RELEASED

Definate improvement over their debut, but not without some flaws. At least the album isn't so disjointed. The one song I can say is total crap is "We Have Reason to Believe", which sounds like really bad boogie, and JADE WARRIOR doing boogie is simply lame. But most of the rest is quite decent varied rock (I find it difficult calling early JADE WARRIOR prog) borrowing from folk, jazz, and hard rock. The closing number, is the acoustic "Yellow Eyes", a wonderful ballad complete with flute. Obviously JADE WARRIOR for the most part, found themselves on track with this album, and they plan on releasing an even better album the following year with "Last Autumn's Dream".

I bought this album as a teenager, when I had just got interested about progressive rock music. I didn't quite get into this album then, but as I listened to it later, I was totally amazed and grew to love it. I guess the jazzy, ethic and psychedelic elements made this too hard for me to comprehend first, as I was keener on symphonic music back then. Now I'm more interested in this kind of music, and even the rock'n'roll number here doesn't bother me. I think it more as a rebellion towards the basic values of art music genre. Also the mixture of different styles is kept together by the band in really prolific manner, tied together by the musical tone and way of playing. This creates a solid aesthetical line through the different numbers of the album, giving vivid and interesting listening experience. If I should choose a most favorite track of these is songs, I would select with difficulty the tune "Water Curtain Cave", which combines brass driven 1960's jazz theme with a long, ethereal and calm psychedelic sequence. Now I have started hunting this down as a vinyl, as I have only a CD reprint by "Line records", which has poor album covers differing from the original. There's not even analog fuzz included with it, so I hope some kind of LP version would be existing for an affordable price. Please accept my most warmest recommendations of this wonderful record.

I've to say beforehand that it took many years (and decades) until I found this band attractive at all. I used to own "Floating World" which I sold some years ago because I really never got into this type of music (meanwhile I'd rather buy it once again). Then I borrowed their previous transitional album "Last Autumn's Dream " and it couldn't convince me neither of this band to be an essential one. After that experience I'd forgot many years about them at all until I've read some reviews about their first two albums (not on this side here!) and I became curious how they sounded like. Okay I found some copies and gave them a listen or two (and honestly more are not necessary to be able to judge those ones). Certainly their style here was still extremely different from the stuff they did later on (which I prefer to this one meanwhile I've to say after listening to almost their full discography). What we get here can be described as a mix between jazz, rock and some psychedelic, I think quite typical and ordinary for early 70's. Really all the tracks on here are decent ones, apart from one that is "We Have Reason To Believe" which is just a stupid and boring boogie or whatsoever song. The long-track "Barazinbar" really saves an extra half star for this album since it's the only outstanding one. This one was certainly an improvement compared to their debut but I'd like to recommend giving "Way of the Sun" a trial to get into their later stuff, at least for me that was the one appealing to me right from the beginning. After that I'd go for "Waves", "Horizon" (terribly underrated here), "Kites" and "Floating World". They're all very good records with some music beyond the "mainstream Prog" of Yes, Genesis and so on. This one here is just good enough for 3 stars I would say!

Jade Warrior goes wild here! This sax-driven energic hard rock/fusion record is VERY good! When I think about Jade Warrior, peaceful and delicate music comes to mind, thinking about albums like Floating World, Kites and Waves. However, Released is surprisingly hard rock. Yes, there are already some excellent peaceful & delicate passages, but they constitute a small percentage of the album duration. There is an omnipresent Van Der Graaf Generator/Solution similitude.

On "Three-Horned Dragon King", there is a marriage between Led Zeppelin-influended hard rock patterns and sax-driven Van Der Graaf Generator/Solution fusion. As if it was not enough, the rhythms are filled with tribal tam-tams. On "Eyes on you", the rhythmic flute contrasts with the visceral hard rock guitar solos. The pleasant Frippian guitar on "Bride of Summer" is particularly soothing. My favorite track remains "Water Curtain Cave", an absolute jazzy gem recalling Van Der Graaf Generator/Solution on saxes and a very young Robert Wyatt on drums. "Minnamoto's Dream" and "We Have Reason to Believe" will make you remember that Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix have always been a very good source of inspiration. The epic "Barazinbar" starts progressively with tribal tam-tam rhythms, leading to repetitive & reassuring flute & sax notes a la Solution: the pleasant rhythmic guitar riffs and solos remind a bit the ones on the Lenny White's Venusian Summer album; the music gets more & more loaded as the track approaches to its end. The album beautifully ends with the excellent "Yellow Eyes", made of peaceful & delicate flute parts and of acoustic guitars a la Renaissance's "Black flame".

I think one of the most interesting things about Jade Warrior is the wide variety of styles they play. From what I have heard, no two albums by them sound alike. On this album they pull a lot from American roots rock styles, as well as music from Africa and a few other influences show up as well. I wouldn't call this one of their best albums, it contains more mediocre rock songs than some of their other albums, but it is still worth checking out.

The album opens with Three-Horned Dragon King, which finds them in a jazzy British RnB style that is somewhat similar to Jonesy or early Camel. Tony Duhig is an excellent guitarist, and it really shows on this cut. This is followed by Eyes on You, a flute driven boogie number that would have fit well on Jethro Tull's first album. The ballad Bride of Summer has a definite early 70s King Crimson sound complete with a Frippish sustained guitar solo. All three of these songs are nice, but not particularly remarkable.

Next is Water Curtain Cave, which is a better example of what this band is capable of. This song opens with a nice jazzy groove topped with a sax and flute melody that is drenched in semi-psychedelic reverb and echo. It sounds like one of those tunes that acid jazz and rare-groove DJs would kill for. After that nice opening the song breaks down into a very quiet space-jazz section that sounds like the calmer moments from Miles' Agharta album. During this quiet section there are some nice guitar and flute solos before they return to the main theme. Side one closes with Minnamoto's Dream, a Hendrix style barn burner that has Duhig rising to the challenge and the woodwinds joining towards the end for a big chaotic finale.

Side two opens with a really bad Slade style rock tune and closes with a ballad named Yellow Eyes. In between these two uneventful songs is the album's highlight; a fifteen minute African odyssey called Barazinbar. I think most rock bands would have a difficult time taking on the difficult polyrhythms and nuances of African music, but thanks to the outstanding percussion skills of Jon Field, Jade Warrior really succeeds in taking on this style. The song opens with Field playing the talking drum and doing a great job of displaying his knowledge on this ancient and traditional instrument. As the song slowly progresses beautiful African horn lines fade in and out and are accompanied by tasteful flute and guitar solos. Towards the end of this track the percussion slips into double time as the solos keep coming.

This is a good album, but it would have been a lot better if there had been fewer mundane rock songs and more tunes like Water Curtain Cave and Barazinbar. Fortunately there are other Warrior albums that rely less on their rock side.

Jade Warrior produced three highly original albums for the Vertigo label in the early 1970's, mixing elements of folk, Jazz and progressive rock with Japanese, Chinese and other Eastern influences. The line-up consisted of Glyn Havard(vocals, bass), Jon Field(flute, percussion, keyboards) and Tony Duhig(guitar), before 1974 saw Havard depart and the group become an instrumental act after Vertigo dropped them due to poor record sales. The band are best remembered for their first three albums, with 'Released' the highly- prized jewel in their exotic oriental crown. Sandwiched between their mellow, self-titled 1971 debut and 1972's Last Autumn's Dream, 'Released', which also emerged in 1971, found the group adding harder-edged guitars, Jazzier interludes, bluesy melodies and stronger, more confident vocals to their innovative playing style. The group cultivated their trademark soft/loud tonal juxtaposition sound on Released whilst also hinting towards their vocal-free future with the ambitious driving jazz-rock of stand-out track "Baranzibar", an epic 15-minute-plus brew of flutes, horns, keys and cutting guitars that perfectly showcased all that Jade Warrior was about. 'Released' opens with the galloping "Three Horned Dragon King", with Duhig's rough- edged guitar-licks and Havard's brash vocals complimenting the battery of horns that bubble underneath. It's almost a deliberate opposite to the lighter, thinner sound of their eponymous predecessor, the group beefing up their meditative-sound with a heavy dose of earthy rock-guitar tones and manic Bitches Brew-era Miles Davis horns. From here-on in the album switches dramatically between soft, moonlit ballads such as the gorgeous guitar-phaser laced "Bride Of Summer" and faster, rockier numbers such as the bluesy "We Have Reason To Believe", wrapping everything in their singular east-meets- west musical vision. Occasionally some of the material come across as slightly too ponderous, such as the slow-burning, tom-tom led "Minnamoto's Dream" , but the more reflective elements of the album generally compliment the group's rockier side, with multi-layered flute/guitar/percussion instrumentation providing a rich, dense sonic tapestry of moods and styles. After 'Released' the group gave us the more reflective 'Last Autumn's Dream', before disappointing sales figures meant that this short-lived version of Jade Warrior would be no more. After Glyn Havard left, Duhig and Field were given the opportunity to continue under the same name and as a two-piece when Traffic, Blind Faith and Spencer Davis Group alumni Steve Winwood recommended them to Chris Blackwell at Island Records, who promptly signed them up. These instrumental albums of the late 70's/early 80's provided a platform for the 'New Age' musical genre, and their career has carried on well into the 21st century, with 'Now', their latest effort, hitting the music-store shelves in late 2008. However, their true golden period peaked with this wonderfully ambitious 1971 attempt to fuse two separate musical worlds, carving out a small but special corner in the world of Progressive Rock that adhered innovatively to the dimensions of the genre. A true enigma, 'Released' is an album quite unlike any other, mixing Jazz, Blues, Folk and Rock with skill, passion and beautiful precision. STEFAN TURNER, LONDON, 2009

3.5 stars. As others have mentioned there's a wide variety of styles on this album, which makes it interesting but it also keeps me from giving it 4 stars. I say that because some of these excursions into different styles just don't work. It could have been so much better. This trio have added a drummer and sax player for this album.

"Three-Horned dragon King" is dominated by guitar and percussion early. The guitar is really in your face. I'm not a big fan of the vocals here because they remind me of early BLUE OYSTER CULT. "Eyes On You" has this nice dark rhythm with aggressive guitar outbursts. Vocals come in sounding better,more like Ian Anderson. Sax is added as well. Good track. "Bride Of Summer" is a mellow tune with reserved vocals, acoustic guitar and flute. "Water Curtain Cave" is my favourite by far. This is jazzy with sax. Just a fantastic tune.

"Minnamoto's Dream" is experimental to open with vocals. A gong then signals a change as this raw sounding guitar comes in before 1 1/2 minutes and it sounds incredible ! It goes on and on. Drums then vocals after 3 minutes. Sax 4 1/2 minutes in as the guitar lights it up. This is my second favourite song here. "We Have reason To Believe" is like that song "Johnny B Good". Yikes is all I can say. "Barazinbar" is a 15 minute jam session with drums,percussion, guitar, sax and flute coming and going. It's pretty good. "Yellow Eyes" is another ballad-like tune with reserved vocals, acoustic guitar and flute.

Lots to like here and enjoy but unfortunately there are some very average sounding tunes here as well.

We have reason to believe ...that this album is an anomaly

When hearing this second album by Jade Warrior and comparing it to their other albums from the same period, I must ask: what happened here?! This all-out Jazz-Rock affair lacks most of the trademarks of the band and reminds more of the Latin Jazz-Rock/Fusion of Santana. The New-Age and World-Music influences that make Jade Warrior so special and distinctive are nowhere to be found on Released. Instead we have saxophone-heavy Jazz-Rock numbers with lots of Latin percussions. The tunes often have a somewhat improvised feel and most of them are too long for their own good. This is most true of Barazinbar which runs for 15 minutes and goes absolutely nowhere during that time! Maybe I am being unfair, but this is just not my cup of tea and not what one would expect from Jade Warrior. If Latin Jazz-Rock/Fusion is your favourite type of music, by all means give this album a chance. Though, others made this type of music much better. For me, this music is rather dull and repetitive with no original musical ideas behind it. They seem content just to let lose and play their instruments without knowing where they would end up.

The tracks that stand most apart from the rest is We Have Reason To Believe which is an awful Boogie Rock 'N' Roll number whose only virtue is its short length and Yellow Eyes which is a nice, but unimpressive, little acoustic ballad.

The conclusion can only be that Released is an anomaly in the Jade Warrior output. For some this can be a good thing, no doubt. But for me this is disappointing. Thankfully, the group would go on to do better and more interesting albums after this one.

For their second album Jade Warrior retreated to safer psychedelic territory and greatly reduced the more unusual elements of their musical style compared with their debut. The influences of musical styles from across the world are toned down greatly, as are the shimmering, ethereal walls of sound that were so wonderful to lose oneself in; in their place are harsh, brash, psychedelic rock pieces which when they work are decent enough songs of their type but when they don't work - as on the chorus to Reason to Believe - they risk becoming irritating.

This would be an unfortunate backwards step for the group, were it not for the fact that these commercial concessions are made up for by the excellent Barazinbar, a nearly 15 minute epic which constitutes perhaps the most progressive work of the Vertigo era of the band. Call it three and a half stars, or 3.75 if you have the rather nice Esoteric rerelease, which is a great sonic improvement over prior CD versions.

For many years this was the only release from JADE WARRIOR's early period that I had heard, courtesy of budget bin opportunism. I'm not sure what possessed me to pick it up let alone purchase it but it certainly wasn't the cover art. And, after listening, shelving, and eventually relegating all of 2 tracks to the immortality of digital conversion, I might have actually concluded that the cover was the best part. Luckily I am committed to making reparations and, having properly listened to their debut of the same year and successor of the following year, I can now evaluate "Released" in proper context. Conclusion: it's easily the worst of the three Vertigo offerings but it's not a frisbee either.

Here Duhig, Field and Havard have called in some reinforcements Dave Conners on sax and flute, later of LIZARD, and Allan Price on actual drums. One might argue whether it's the influence of Conners that imparts a hitherto hidden jazz element to the WARRIOR arsenal or whether they engaged Conners to clarify that vision. I'm going to play safe and state it's a little of both, as pieces like "Water Curtain Cave" and "Barinzabar", the two best and longest tracks, don't come about when musicians meet in the studio on the one hand, and absolutely come about when musicians meet in the studio, on the other hand. Both are short on composition, "Barinzabar" especially so, but both establish a groove and wring every living cell out of it before resuscitating it again. The fact they are both instrumental does not actually diminish the contribution of Glyn Havard in the least as his persuasive bass lines more than compensate. Some of the meanderings of Baranzibar are clear precursors to the band's Island Records period of the mid 1970s.

While the band should be commended for altering their style so quickly, thereby establishing a pattern that would repeat in various guises for the years to come, the big issue is that the rockers so dominate the remainder of the pieces and they are shockingly lame and one dimensional for the most part. The title of "Three Horned Dragon King" is its best quality while "Eyes on You" and "Reason to Believe" fare even worse. Only "Minnamoto's Dream" skulks somewhere between contemporaneous BLACK SABBATH and future STEELEYE SPAN (its meters seem to have inspired their "Allison Gross"), and its reference to a Middle Ages Japanese clan is worth a star for sure. But in general the rockers lack the whimsy of their earlier counterparts, which is after all the only saving grace for most rockers anyway.

Yes there are the requisite couple of KING CRIMSON styled ballads, neither brilliant and both very brief but very welcome. "Yellow Eyes" is the more dynamic of the two, though "Bride of Summer" has the more Fripp like guitars. Yet they seem contrived in their placement in an album where the shift to jazz and hard rock leaves them a spent force from the opening bars, relieved to be released.

It's entirely possible that the mix offered on "Released" will work well for you, and there are certainly some band connoisseurs who favor it, but I think that it's too eclectic and not eclectic enough simultaneously. Because the two best tracks are the longest, and they do so by offering up some genuine exuberance, I've no trouble rounding up to 3 stars.