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Khan - Space Shanty CD (album) cover

SPACE SHANTY

Khan

 

Canterbury Scene

4.29 | 825 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

CCVP
Prog Reviewer
5 stars One of the best albums from Canterbury, if not the best

Khan is yet another case of a one album band in progressive rock that made an incredible album and then disappeared, what is always disappointment, since good music is never enough.

The main thing that made this album click in me was the strange dialectic with King crimson that this album has: its music is considerably alike the In the Court of the Crimson King album from King Crimson / it has the same mood, but yet it does not sound like King Crimson. I know, i know, but it is pretty hard for me to explain also, so let's just move along. . .

Their music can be described, very shortly, as a blend between hard rock, space rock, psychedelia and jazz. The guitars are the most prominent instrument here, being responsible for most of the solos through the album. The organ is, however, pretty important because it is used as the second voice or secondary soloist instrument. The bass and the drums, although doing an excellent job, only have a background spot here in Space Shanty. One very interesting thing about this albums is that, by having two competent vocalists, the band have a great versatile vocal department.

The songs, despite being quite complex, have the traditional rock structure of theme - chorus - theme used in may different ways, since they have a significant number of different musical themes throughout each song.

Another thing that deserves to be mentioned are the lyrics. Although english is not my first language, it is not hard for me to appreciate the lyrics of Space Shanty, which fit quite well with the band's music in general. The vocals also help the lyrics considerably, since each vocal sings the lyrics that, in my opinion, fit better for it.

Grade and Final Thoughts

Space Shanty is definitely a memorable album for me. It was my first Canterbury album and it one of the best albums I have ever listened in my life. All songs are great, just like the instrumentation and the vocalization. Besides that, Khan managed to avoid a big part of the Canterbury clichés, making this album quite different from the others from this genre.

A great album such as this one deserves a great grade, so 5 stars.

CCVP | 5/5 |

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