If I were the tearful type, I'd say that all the disdain this album gets has barely kept me from crying. I wish more people would join the light side of Comus while still appreciating the dark side. Not only do I think that this album does not get enough respect from those who love First Utterance, but I wish that it got more attention from those who hate Comus based on the rather dark and disturbing, pagan themed conceptual album called First Utterance.

To Keep From Crying is a fun and I think dynamic album that I have recommended to various people who loathe Comus because of First Utterance, and while none of my attempts have so far worked, you can't Keep me From Trying. It's not necessarily that I think that they will like this album, but I want to show people that there is another gentler and happier side to the group. I hear Comus called by people who are not referring to the first album specifically but to the group generally, disturbing, gross, vile, soul destroying and gut wrenching. Generally these people have no familiarity with To Keep From Crying and so it doesn't even factor into their views of the band -- it's like the album doesn't even exist since it's so overshadowed by its sinister older sibling. But beyond that, I look at First Utterance in much the same way as watching a horror film or reading a horror novel.

First Utterance has a concept, and a creepy one at that. I think some who could easily take watching a film that has such themes and would not assume that the filmmaker is someone who condones brutal behavior have a harder time with music that deals with the same subject matter. Like lyrics are supposed to be authentic and heartfelt and not fictitious or something. Just because one writes about defiling a virgin in song, poem, novel or film does not mean that one condones the act, nor does listening to it or reading it mean that you condone it. And just because you tell a pagan story does not necessarily make you a pagan -- I mention this because some religious people are offended by it, and think it's Satanism. Sure, some might say that you're sick for being entertained by it or writing about it, but that's another angle. Incidentally, I think that the film The Wicker Man with its pagan themes works well with First Utterance (and I recommend the soundtrack to folk lovers who love pastoral music with creepy undertones). And no, I have not forgotten that I'm here to talk about To Keep From Crying, but it is hard not to compare it to First Utterance, and for me too when I first heard To Keep From Crying I couldn't help but compare it to the debut, and while I was pleasantly surprised by To keep From Crying because I had low expectations, it did seem on the whole a poor follow-up album. It's over the years that I've come to rate To Keep From Crying much more highly and think that it's a very good album in its own right.

So... some are highly critical of the band Comus based solely on First Utterance, while others are highly critical of To Keep From Crying based on their love of First Utterance. Comus is losing out either way. I think each is very good in its own way, and in the ways that they overlap since despite the differences, both albums have musical similarities.

Like the earlier Comus album, this album also has plenty of beauty and a level of eccentricity. Like with F.U. the vocals on To Keep from Crying will grate with some at times. Yes, this is not the acid folk masterpiece that First Utterance is, the direction has changed, but there's still plenty to love in this album. Some of the music on this album would not be musically out of place on F.U. To Keep From Crying is not a harrowing experience, nothing wrong with up-beat, and there is much for varied tastes to enjoy.

From the moment I heard this album I thought the songs "Children of the Universe" and "To Keep From Crying" absolutely terrific which mix beautiful folk with an electrifying rock dynamic, and have fabulous build-ups. Five star songs. Wonderful! I also loved "Touch Down", "Waves and Caves", and the bluesy "Get Yourself a Man" is for me a real treat. That's already most of the album, but I didn't like the rest of the album much. As the years passed I found that I really like the whole album, and I appreciate the contrasts in the album. There's more going on in this album than you might notice at first -- it's not some lame slice of commercial pap, though it is more commercial than F.U. It is a different beast. The To Keep From Crying beast wants to be played, cause to not play it would make it sad, but doesn't want to play, play, play with you in a most bestial manner.

For those that hear this album sl*g.ed by fans of First Utterance, and those that automatically dismiss Comus because of some songs on First Utterance (shame on those who can't appreciate the pastoral and rather creepy beauty of "The Herald" at least ;) ), please give the To keep From Crying album a chance before you judge the album based on what you've heard or before you judge the band harshly overall due to thematic perceptions.

I actually have this album on Song to Comus, and appreciate it even more there for how it contrasts with the music of First Utterance -- dark versus light. For those that don't have this or First Utterance, If you can get your hands on Song to Comus, that is better than getting this alone. The bonus tracks on that album alone are stunning, and you don't know Comus until you've heard "Winter is a Coloured Bird" and "All the Colours of Darkness".

The music on this album is utterly essential to my music collection, and I return to it very frequently. It's also one of those albums that I don't want to end, partially because it ends so wonderfully with the song "To Keep From Crying".

I rated it four originally, but am dropping that rating to three simply because I doubt that most here will feel the same way that I do about this album even if they do give it a chance.

While I don't think this tribute to be an "excellent addition to any prog music collection" (nor would I say the same of original Magma albums, though I would say that having at least one Magma album is an excellent addition to any well-rounded prog collection, and "Theusz Hamtaahk" off Retrospektïw I-II would make my Zeuhl 101 class), I do think it would be a very excellent addition to every Christian Vander tribute-completist's collection (yes, absolutely essential to tributes-to-Vander completists I think I can safely say). So, while it's very good, but non-essential generally-speaking, I would like to give it four stars because it is a very good tribute album, and perhaps it should be judged compared to other tribute albums -- such as the New Kids on the Block's disappointing tribute to Menudo's Greatest Hits (particularly disappointing because the band never did one). But, since I think it could have been considerably better, I give it a strong three stars. Now that we have cleared that up, on to the music... at some time, no promises. In fact, this becomes much more essential because of the bands/artists that were involved. What a great list of acts. Now where was I?

I find myself returning to this like no other tribute album, which isn't saying much. I'm not a fan of tributes, generally. The first starts terrifically well with Koenjihyakkei's "Magma Medley". I only wish it was longer, but the brevity gives it more impact. It's such a quick journey. Koenjihyakkei is, in a way, the perfect band to cover Magma, as they are the Japanese successors to the Magma throne (Koenjihyakkei's "Angherr Shisspa" album is amongst the most essential of Zeuhl). It is an incredibly talented band.

All of the Magma personnel do terrific jobs, though perhaps not altogether quite so full of surprises as I would like. I love their performances, though -- some are real standouts.

Some tracks like "Om Zanka" are very well-executed, but lack sufficient twist on the original music -- more of a straight cover than an adaptation. These best ones commonly have more personality -- the band/ artist has put its own stamp on it. The "Kohntarkosz" one is very well done, but it really doesn't bring anything much new to the table (not surprising considering who did it). When you hear Kramus doing Magma, for instance, you would never think this was Magma. If Magma did sound like that, I wouldn't like Magma nearly so much (okay, maybe not at all), but it's fun and adds variety. Ad Vitam's "Morrison in the Storm" is beautiful. Klaus Blasquiz gives a terrific vocal performance of "De Futura". Troll's "Day after Day" is delightful. I find Disk 1 very good.

On to CD II. It starts off very well with Lockwood's contribution, and Kafka follow-up very nicely. John Trap's "Aurae" is a highlight; I really love it. It may be my favourite off the album. Then ex-Girl comes up with a surprising a Capella song (such a 'kawai' group, but this is serious, and seriously good). Gauthier comes up with a fabulous take on my favourite Magma track, "Theusz Hamtaahk". The rest is good too. "Nono" is as delightful as Troll's.

I do like the variety of bands/ artists when it comes to the music -- from Magma stalwarts, to other Zeuhl bands, to punk, to lounge, to metal, to pop.... That said, I don't think it's altogether that inspired. I feel like some are going through the motions. I would like more creativity and deeper re-imaginings, exploration of the themes. One can only imagine what Art Zoyd would have done with the music. Now that group would have had something to say. This could be more artistic, more exploratory, but it's enjoyable. It's rather shallow on the whole. It's good, but generally not insightful -- some needed to dig deeper down and re-invent the music. It's not really of consistent quality to my ears, either.

I am still wanting to give it four stars even though the adaptations/ covers on the whole are not quite as creative as I would like, because I find it a very enjoyable project even if not really profound. Maybe there aren't startling revelations, maybe it's not that spiritual or reaches sublime para-Magma heights, and maybe it doesn't give much greater understanding of Vander/ Magma, but it's good, and I think it a much better than average tribute album to a much better than average person. More variation on Vander themes would have been better, and more exploratory musical analysis of Vander/Magma would be preferable. What would have been really great is if all the bands had worked on a grand finale (thanks to technology, they wouldn't have to physically meet). Now that would be grand... followed by a special, original tribute to Christian Vander by Robert Wyatt. Even grander. And had, as already alluded to, "chamber prog" groups such as Art Zoyd contributed, I think its status would be elevated greatly as "art" -- not just something for the fans. Oops, does this now mean that I must lower my rating to two stars because this tribute album, like tribute albums commonly, is really intended for "collectors/fans only"? I won't because I think this would have appeal to more than Vander/Magma fans. It should interest those who enjoy the bands that contributed, and in some ways, this would be an easier introduction to the world of Magma than Magma itself (especially since there is variety in regards to the approaches to music and styles of the artists who contributed).

It's hard for me not to think of all the possibilities that could have elevated this (original material would be one as one can pay tribute to the music without doing covers), but hopefully I'll find many more tribute-to-Vander/Magma albums to sink my teeth into. Debbie Harry does Vander; hmm, maybe not.

All said, I still think this a wonderful tribute, and I love it. It really is very good (a superior tribute album) and mightn't be a bad introduction for some into the world of Vander.

Is this more homage or fromage, you be the judge.

For those that don't know it, I suggest listening to the samples at http://www.myspace.com/hamtai

-Greg

P.S. Vander iss de hundin!

Before I go into the main bulk of the review I just want to clarify a few things regarding my general opinion of Pink Floyd. I will admit that they are far from my favorite band, however they have released several masterful albums in their career such as DSOTM, Meddle and Animals, so I have no particular dislike for the band. When I got this album I was expecting it to be up to the same standard as the previously mentioned albums, but after numerous attempts to love this album its flaws have become increasingly apparent to me.

WYWH is a album which contains 2 main types of songs. The first type comes from the 2 title track epics that bookend the album. Part one begins with a very slow ambient instrumental which lasts about 4 minutes. Eventually the song begins to pick up pace and a electric guitar driven instrumental follows which while faster paced seldom goes beyond mid tempo. It is not until the 8th minute that vocals come in.

Now I don't have a problem with ambient music or slower instrumentals, the problem here is how uninspired they are. There is very little of the care and detail that was present in their previous album, so after several minutes of these 2 sections I get totally bored. It amazes me these were the same people that wrote On The Run which was full of texture and creative ideas, but the first 8 minutes here are nothing short of awful

The remaining 4 minutes are much stronger and worthy of the other masterpieces they have created. Here they create a incredibly catchy poppy track with a very strong sax instrumental. The problem is that part 2 of this song contains all the strong elements of this song including a far more diverse instrumental. Therefore the only part of this song that interests me is the sax instrumental which is not worth the 10 minutes of inferior music.

"Welcome to the machine" does to be fair have a good amount of interesting experimental sounds which add a lot of depth to the song. My problem with it is how unpleasant the song is in terms of mood to listen to and how painful Gilmore's vocals are. While a well written song it just comes across of 7 minutes of depression and bad vocals. Objectively this is a excellent song but subjectively I hate it passionately.

"Have a cigar" is for me just a very weak and unimaginative track. Most of it is a plain fast paced rock song with a run-of-the-mill instrumental at the end. Roy Harper takes the vocals, but as with the last song I still find the lyrics and singing irritating. I don't have a problem with negative songs, but it comes across here is spiteful and lacking in any real emotional depth.

The title track is the first song on the album I find to be quite good. There are some interesting sound snippits and unlike the last 2 songs the tone is warm and genuine. There is no Prog in this song but there is a very beautiful instrumental at the end of the song which perfectly leads to the final track.

Part 2 of WYWH is what saves this album from the dreaded 1 star rating. The central pop theme present in part 1 returns, except this time there is some impressive space rock instrumentals which follow on from each other very well.

There is a lot of subjective dislike to this album, but there is also some more objective problems. There is no logical connection at all between the title track elements and the other songs in the middle of the album. This makes this record sound very disjointed and gives the album a poor flow. There is also not as much detail or original ideas present on this album compared to Dark Side or Animals. And finally the subject matter in this album comes across as over the top complaining. I don't mind them stating the problems of the music industry, but to give such a hopeless and bleak picture is totally unnecessary and does not represent the real world.

There is very little for me to enjoy in this album. Its a mystery why this album is loved so much, but that is the nature of music. I doubt this review will change many people's opinion but I hope I have been able to justify why I see this as a low 2 star album.

The songs on Irrlicht are ambient, minimalistic, droning sound experiments. Very repetitive and the few times there´s anything resembling a melody or a progression of notes that could lead to thinking that now something memorable will appear the repetitive droning just goes on an on. There are next to no drums or percussion on the album as far as I can hear ( the booklet says that Klaus Schulze plays percussion so I guess it´s there somewhere) and the main instrument is organ. The instrumentation also include guitar, E-Machines ( I´m not sure what that is) and Zither and in addition to those instruments Klaus Schulze also had the opportunity to record a rehearsal session with the Colloquium Musica Orchestra which he uses somewhere on the album ( played backwards according to the booklet).

The production is allright.

At the risk of being flamed by fans of Irrlicht I have to play with open cards and say that this album left me completely cold. But not only that. It left me frustrated and exhausted too. The 20 minute + songs just seem to go on and on forever without much happening ( and when something happens that new thing also goes on forever) and while this is undoubtedly a groundbreaking album from those early days of experimenting with sound, the album unfortunately ends up being just that: An experiment for the sake of experimenting. In other words art for art´s sake and as much as I respect innovative and adventurous artists the music of such artists has to give me at least some sort of satisfaction ( move me, challenge me...etc) and that is not the case with Irrlicht which feels unnecessarily longdrawn and patience testing for me. There are simply no redeeming qualities on this album that can warrant even a 2 star rating IMO, so this will be one of my very few 1 star ratings.

http://www.progarchives.com/Review.asp?id=269270