GRYPHON

There is something kinda eccentric when hearing a folk band like Gryphon. Progressive Folk and Progressive Folk Rock is an odd genre, with the uses of more acoustic instruments and woodwinds to send you back in the times of olden farms medieval valleys, or take you into a scenic woodland area filled with big mushrooms and bigger red wood trees. It is certainly an interesting genre of Prog I feel is a tad underrated, aside if you talk about bands like Jethro Tull. However I was fairly interested in tackling this band, Gryphon. I felt like they could be fairly interesting to hear, especially since 2 years ago they released their most recent album, and I felt like it was as good a time as any to check what this band could be about.

To be frank here, I'll definitely say I like the medieval aesthetic this album brings. It sounds like I am being sent into a time machine to the dark ages in an olden farm town currently having a festival. It's rather intriguing to say the least. Kemp's Jig is definitely one of the highlights here with an interesting woodwind sound and an almost festival- like charm. They clearly captured the old English folk feel on this album really well, and it definitely does sound milquetoast.

However, even then this album is very boring to me. Tracks like Estampie, Crossing The Styles, and Juniper Suite are just insanely boring. Even for folk music, this is rather dull.

Much of this comes from the lack of any beats or high moments on this album. Obviously this is the type of progressive folk where it's a lot more folk than Prog, which I guess is not a bad thing, but definitely isn't what I really want for a Prog album. It's clearly meant to reflect the olden days of music, but I just don't dig it.

But this album does do something right, and it's how varied the songs are. Sure most are boring, but at least they have some kind of differences between one another so I can at least get my ear's worth in that fact.

So, if you cannot tell, I do not like this album. It's dull, boring, but you know, I cannot be too hard on this album. It's their first and they were clearly trying to find their shoes in this album, and it definitely has a neat folk charm too it. So I can respect the album, but it doesn't stop me from not liking it.