ALBATROSS

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Yet another one-shot sympho-prog band from the Midwest who heard CLOSE TO THE EDGE, thought, "We could do that!" and made one privately produced album before disappearing off the face of the Earth for good. Like most of them, originality is not a very high priority. "Devil's Strumpet" (ooh, they should be garotted for that title!) notably cops the pipe-organ part from the "I Get Up, I Get Down" section of "Close To The Edge". Nothing else here is that blatant, but really, the band are hardly trailblazing innovators.

Still, for what it is, the album is fairly enjoyable. "Mr. Natural" is a bit of a throwaway, but the 14 minute "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" suite, obviously the piece the band lavished the most attention on and put the most effort into, is resonably strong. File under: pleasant, but rather inessential.

Albatross were a largely forgettable symphonic rock band from Rockford Illinois who came and went in the space of few years in the mid seventies. They owe very obvious debts to Yes and, to a lesser extent ELP, and in fact a couple tracks (“Devil's Strumpet” and “Humpback Whales”) are almost completely derivative of Yes circa Tales from Topographic Oceans.

Of course these guys weren’t anywhere near as creative or talented as the boys from London, and as a result their only album is a bit of a study in inconsistency.

Their magnum opus, as it were, is the fourteen minute long “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse”, a bombastic and overachieving orgy of keyboards, plodding bass and surprisingly little guitar. Lead vocalist Mike Novak’s singing is routinely referred to as “an acquired taste” in reviews, which of course means that it isn’t very good. Novak has virtually no range, has a bit of trouble staying in synch with the song’s tempo, and seems to be slightly tone deaf. Other than that this is an unexceptional song but one that certainly was not out-of-place at the time it was written, and probably sounded pretty good in concert.

Otherwise the record consists of the two aforementioned Yes-like numbers, a very strange “Mr. Natural” and “Cannot Be Found” which is a piano-heavy number that sounds like it was written for a Broadway musical.

“Mr. Natural” is some sort of rock-god tribute type of tune, complete with head-shaking lyrics like “all the girls try to touch his cape, Mr. Natural; one day he’ll be charged for rape” and awkwardly timed keyboard riffs that launch and die at inexplicable intervals.

This isn’t much of an album quite frankly, and the vinyl originals sell for ridiculous sums to collectors foolish enough to pay them, but the Japanese CD version is more accessible (although of dubious legitimacy from the looks of it). This is really only for obsessive compulsive collectors in my opinion, and as such only merits two stars.

peace

Albatross is a forgotten symphonic band from USA from the mid '70's who released only one album in 1976 selftitled. Well, I saw that the reviewers from here ( just 5 befor me) are nor so ethusiastic about this album , to me is quite opposite, I find it enjoyble, with good tracks. The music is Yes orientated , with vocal parts remaind me more of Styx than Yes or ELP, but not really bad, seriosly this is a good album. The best pieces from here are the opening track Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse - excellent piece with uptempo musicianship and bombastic arrangements on keys and Mr. Natural - an instristing one who desearve some spins. So, a good album, nothing special but not bad really. 3 stars .

Obscure american band from the mid 70´s. I only found this LP (yes, I found a vinyl copy with a friend, don´t ask me how he got it!) recently. And although the music here is quite pleasant, this is no masterpiece. How would I describe their music? Well, promising might be the right word. Albatross was one of the many groups that seem to worship Yes above all things (and ELP to a less extent) and tried to emulate their sound. The results are ok, I guess, but the only average production and lack of real strong material made this self titled work a curio more than anything else.

Please don´t get me wrong: as I said before, the band has its merits, specially at the keyboards department with very fine vintage keys put into good use (but again, they sound too much like Wakeman and Emerson, if you know what I mean). Mellotrons, Hammond organs and pianos abound on this LP.Surprisingly there are few guitar parts. Singer Mike Novak is surely one of the weak links of the chain. He tries hard to match his fellow bandmates, but he is no Jon Anderson (thank god he didn´t try to sing in falsetto). The rhythm section is quite good.

Songwriting wise, the band had a long way to go, and it is a pity they didn´t have the opportunity to prove themselves in that field. The 13 minute suite The Four Horseman Of Apocalypse is their best, but although quite pleasing it fails to generate much excitement. The weird Mr. Natural sounds like Yes trying to rock hard, and it is probably their weakest in the whole package. The Devil´s Strumpet is - terrible title aside - fairly good instrumentally, if you don´t mind the lack of originality (it is again a kind of Yes and ELP mix). Humpback Whales finishes the album with another Time And A Word era Yes-sounding tune.

Conclusion: the band had the chops and it would be interesting to see how they would develop if they had to chance to come up with better and more original material. Unfortunatly they didn´t. And this CD is definitly well done within all the limitations I mentioned before, but there were far too many other much more interesting stuff available at the time to give it more than a two star rating. For collectors and fans only.