THE CRIME

The story of GREY LADY DOWN begins at late-80's when singer Martin Wilson met keyboardist Louis David and formed ''Shadowland'' along with guitarist Julian Hunt.The original rhythm section consisted of Andrew Rae and Stuart Ellerington,but in 1992 they were replaced by Sean Speare on bass and Mark Robotham on drums,while the band was renamed to GREY LADY DOWN (after an eponymous film of 1978 with Charlton Heston),as Clive Nolan had already a project under the name ''Shadowland''.The band gigged at the Oxford area and entered Phoenix Studios in 1993 to record their own material.Followed by a memorable performance at the Marquee Club of London the band signed a two-albums deal with Cyclops and ''The crime'' meant to be the first one.

Led by the sensitive and magnificent voice of Martin Wilson,GREY LADY DOWN played typical British progressive rock of the new wave with lots of digital keyboards, deep atmospheres, nice guitar hooks and symphonic tendencies.David's style of playing is very close to MARILLION's Mark Kelly with distinctive solos and grandiose fillers dominating the album.Julian Hunt has his own style with a guitar sound gearing up where it should (Gary Chandler of JADIS comes sometimes to mind) and far from being the band's hero with boring solos and any kind of this stuff.We meet an excellent drummer named Mark Robotham and a groovy bassist under Sean Speare,completing a quartet of excellent musicians...But the singing performance of Wilson is the real highlight of ''The crime'',a singer with theatrical chords and an emotional approach to music.Simply awesome!For fans of light-symph/song- based progressive rock this should certainly be a fascinating purchase.Strongly recommended, especially for the great vocal work...3.5 stars for this nice effort!