STOAT & BOTTLE

Haze is one of those groups that I discovered back in the mid-90's and have just recently completed my studio collection of their work with this album. This album was originally released back in 1987 and rereleased just 2 years on CD for the first time. Musically, it sounds quite a bit like what Twelfth Night were doing at the time, that is mixing ample amounts of the 80's vibe into their brand of neo-prog. If you like neo and you like the 80's sound this might be a good pickup for you, but it is certainly not the most essential recording in their catalogue. Still, the album has some great songs, and Paul McMahon's rich voice fits the music well. In fact, he could have as easily been an 80's new wave singer as he was a prog singer.

The lyrics seem to form a sort of concept, with the protagonist hanging out at his favorite watering hole night after night, although how each song fits into the concept is a little unclear, even to the author of the album's liner notes. Some of the lyrics take a downright dark turn, as in the song Autumn about the untimely death of a lover, or Ophelia which sounds like it's about a friends suicide, or The Vice, about growing old and death and time as the enemy of us all. Some very cheery stuff.

The album starts off on a very upbeat note, despite the darkness that will later come. The title track could easily be a commercial jingle for your local pub. The album ends with the mostly instrumental "Last Orders", which begins with a soft haunting and sad melody and builds on the melody until an emotive guitar solo finishes off the album proper. In between, the album throws in some hard rock - "The Vice" and "Shadows" (the latter of which sounds like it could have come from the Geoff Mann led Twelfth Night), the symphonic "Ophelia", pure 80's - "Tunnel Vision" and "Fading Away", the bluesy "Autumn" and a song that could have easily been an 80's anthem "In the End". All in all there is a lot of variety on this album, although some songs are more successful than others. The best are "Last Orders", "Ophelia", "In the End", "Autumn", and "The Vice". The pure 80's tracks are less successful.

The album sports five bonus tracks, four of which are from the band's 1994 release "World Turtle". The last two tracks, the lyrically-related, Christian-themed "Wooden House" and "Stone House" are the most interesting, the last one being another good 80's styled anthem. This album rates a solid 3 stars. A good album. Not as essential as their previous two efforts, but still, if you dig the 80's and like neo, this is an album you will enjoy (possibly with the cold beverage of your choice).

This, the third album from this English neo-prog band makes me want to go to that tavern pictured on the front cover and drown my memories from this album in stout ale. Well, it is not that bad. But it is not an album that cheers me up too.

Haze does, tried to do commercial accessible neo prog without sounding progressive. It is like making a porn movie with five layers of clothes on. The result is an album like this.

The melodies is lacking in contents and substance. They are more pop-rock than progressive rock. The sound and vocals is firmly in the new-romantics era. The songs was probably written in this era too so no wonder. A couple of the hooks and chorus lines has been nicked from popular, multi million songs from that era. Thankfully, I cannot remember their names, but beware of thieves when going to your local tavern.

The vocalist and the musicians does a good enough job. The melodies, even the nicked and modified ones, are pretty substandard. There are a couple of decent songs here. But this album has been caught in a time warp and does not look good in this day and age. This album is a reminder how bad the 1980s really was.

2 stars

And so, in 1996 Haze released what was going to be the first of a trilogy of CDs, making available the recordings they made in the Eighties. At this time I seem to remember that the band were no more, although Paul and Chris McMahon were working as World Turtle and were also in Treebeard with Haze drummer Paul Chisnell, but given that these guys have resurrected the Haze name more than once as well as playing in other bands nearly every night of the week I could be wrong! A mere four years later and the second CD appeared, and as quick as a flash (okay, it took another eight years) the final part arrived, 'Stoat & Bottle'. When they attempted to remix these it was discovered that the original tapes were not exactly up to the task so instead they concentrated on just digitally transferring them. So, what this means is what I am listening to sounds pretty close to how it would have been played back in 1987 (vinyl and cassette no less). That means that at least for the first song I found that I was concentrating more on the quality of the recording than of the quality of the music, but soon moved on to discover the delights that are contained within.

The original album contains some gems that the band still play in concert today, such as "The Vice" which has always been one of my personal favourites. It is the longest song on the album, and it always amazes me that somehow Chris manages to switch between keyboards and bass so effectively when playing this in concert, the only other musician I have ever witnessed managing to pull this off with aplomb is Geddy Lee! As with much of Haze's music, this is driving over the top neo-prog with crunching guitars, swathes of keyboards, pounding bass all being muscled along by powerful drums. "Autumn" starts off as a blues number, with some strident soloing from Paul and it is the combination of different styles that makes this work so well.

There are lots of additional tracks, and while the sound is undoubtedly the product of being an old recording originally made on a budget by an underground prog act, there is no doubting that any fan of the band or of neo-prog in general will need to discover this further. These guys knows that the word 'rock' is as important as the word 'progressive' and provide plenty of blast to go with the finesse and skill. For me I enjoyed going back to hear the original versions of some songs I already knew, plus plenty of new ones, but for a newcomer to the band I would get one of their Anniversary show concerts first and then come back to discover some great music from a prog band that started in the Seventies and keep coming back for more.