MIDNIGHT MUSHRUMPS

Conventional wisdom holds that Gryphon started off as a talented bunch of classical musicians larking about on Renaissance instruments before going on to produce a landmark progressive recording on their classic third album Red Queen To Gryphon Three. While that is certainly true, it does give one the impression that Gryphon got progressively better. The truth is that while their second album Midnight Mushrumps saw a drastic move towards rockier material, it was in some ways, a less appealing album than Gryphon's eponymous debut.

The sole reason for this was that the side-long title track was a misfiring epic that somehow managed to fill 19 minutes of one's time with well-played music that lacked any sense of direction whatsoever. The utter dreariness of listening to the piece's numerous false starts in the hope that the brilliant Richard Harvey plans to take his listeners somewhere exciting is enough to kill the enthusiasm of many a budding prog fan.

If you could get past the enormous disappointment of the title track, it would however become clear on the quintet of shorter songs that Gryphon's music had evolved from the strictly traditional music of the first album into something distinctly more compelling.

Every song, from Gulland Rock to Ethelion (wierd laughs and all) to The Last Flash of Grberdine Tailor has some really nice melodic moments. Yet, none of them were full-fledged classics that could compare with the first album's The Juniper Suite and The Unquiet Grave. Nobody who heard Midnight Mushrumps when it first came out could possibly have predicted the magnum opus that would unfold later the same year. ... 54% on the MPV scale