RAGNARÖK

Ragnarok's debut album finds them playing a gentle, mellow blend of charming folk rock and laid-back progressive rock. An all-instrumental affair, it boasts guitar and flute work which in conjunction put me in mind of a substantially folkier version of Camel. On the other side of the equation, the folk influences remind me of West Coast folk rock more than it does, say, the sort of folk motifs Jethro Tull were emphasising in their work at around the same time, or the pastoral influences that would characterise early Genesis. The end result is a folk prog album which has a unique sound and which I think has been mildly unfairly overlooked. I don't think it's a full-on lost classic, but it's certainly a very charming album which doesn't deserve the obscurity it's languished in as far as the international prog scene goes.