DARKNESS BEFORE DAWN

Thanks to SouthSideoftheSky for noticing Mentaur, languishing in prog doldroms for many years now. Once a year or so I dig out the old demos (4 of which I have as digital copies) and enjoy a blast from the past. As recorded in the previous review, the production quality from these tapes (and eventually the CD) directly reflects the amount of money we had - i.e. precisely none. I'd like to think that the quality of the music and the musicianship shines through, but at times it's quite heavily masked...! Being in a prog band between 1989 and 1994 was not straightforward. Your music was condemned by many without even being played, it was hard to get gigs, the mainstream press treated you as a joke stuck in the past (although we did manage to secure a couple of decent reviews for live shows in Kerrang). Of course the great irony is that metal/hard rock in the '90s evolved into quite progressive material, with mainstream bands starting to release material along the lines of the stuff we were doing five years earlier.

If you can pick up a copy of Darkness Before Dawn, while I cannot guarantee you that all tracks will be to your taste, I do hope and believe that you would find enough quality music/musicianship to justify the risk of purchase. Several songs demonstrate heavy riffing, in a Dream Theater/Queensryche way, but the production skills never existed to capture the sound we wanted in the studio. Live was defintely the best way to get a feel for what Mentaur was trying to do, as we were certainly trying to be the heaviest prog band out there. Unfortunately that is not really clear from this CD. There are moments of the two formally mentioned bands (though note that only When Dream and Day Unite had been released when we wrote the bulk of our material, and DT were pretty underground at the time, certainly in the UK). Guitarist Rob Barter was a great fan of both Dave Gilmour and Gary Moore, and his playing style sits somewhere between these two, with the solo at the end of Distant Ways still one of the best Comfortably Numb alternatives out there. I'm still really proud of our epics, Day of Wrath and The Last Battle, which I think stand as two of the great prog epics ever - but then I would say that wouldn't I?

As a "summary" of Mentaur's career, Darkness Before Dawn makes a great introduction to what the band was trying to do. Suspend the expectation of 21st century production, remember that these recordings were made on a shoestring budget, partially in bedrooms and I am sure you will enjoy much of this. To whet your appetite, Mentaur have a myspace page with a few tracks from DBD, plus some memories from other demos, www.myspace.com/mentaurmusic. If you are one of the old fans and would like digital copies of some of the old demos, PM me. Revive some Mentaur interest 20 years on!

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