TIBET

TIBET were a six piece German band who released this one album back in 1979. They actually started recording it in December of 1976, returned to the studio in October of 1977 and finished it in September of 1978.The music is very much Symphonic and keyboard driven with mellotron on a few tracks. I completely agree with Kenethlevine's evaluation about the singer who I also find to have a grating voice and without question if this was an instrumental album i'd be giving this 4 stars. The vocals are in English by the way.

"Fight Back" opens with gentle acoustic guitar as synths join in along with some atmosphere. This is good. It starts to build to a climax around 1 1/2 minutes in then changes as the vocals arrive for the first time. Catchy but the vocals are tough to swallow. "City By The Sea" is better at first as we get a beautiful instrumental opening with piano and guitar. That all changes when the vocals arrive and the sound changes. It does settle back but i'm not feeling it with those vocals taking a prominant role. Mellotron after 2 minutes as the vocals stop. Man these guys can be so good. The guitar and mellotron are really good as this plays out. "White Ships And Icebergs" opens with mellotron and i'm thinking GENESIS right away. This is my favourite track and not surprisingly it's an instrumental. This is also the track I sampled that moved me to buy this, I guess I should have listened to more tunes(haha). Love the contrasts of the mellotron laden mellow sections to the uptempo keyboard driven parts. Excellent !

"Seaside Evening" opens with the sounds of waves before the vocals and music come in in rather a laid back style. This one is pretty good as he sings in more of a reserved manner. "Take What's Yours" is the longest tune at almost 7 1/2 minutes. Organ to start and it's close to nasty before the music kicks into an uptempo groove. Vocals before 1 1/2 minutes. Drums and organ lead the way along with the vocals of course. This would have been a good instrumental but as it is we get a prolonged instrumental section. "Eagles" is my second favourite tune and it's also an instrumental. It opens with mellotron and is mellow as the guitar and a beat join in with keys. I like this one a lot. A beautiful section late ends it. "No More Time" is the final track and it's fairly relaxed with vocals. Not bad. It picks up as contrasts continue.

Hard for me to argue with those who rate this highly since it's me who has the problems with the vocals and many don't, but 3 stars is my rating despite the excellent instrumental music. throughout. I should also mention that the band at one time had Eastern influences in their sound so that's why they named themselves TIBET, but there's none of that on this album that I can hear.