JANE III

JANE III is quite different from their first 2 albums. Looking at the cover design, one might believe we are on our way to prog heaven. On the contrary, JANE changes it musical format to become a hard rock band with prog leanings and not a prog band with hard rock leanings like it was on TOGETHER and HERE WE ARE!

First of all, the keyboards have vanished: Nadolny left with his mellotron and organ not to be replaced. MAUCHER is back on bass as Wolfgang KRANTZ plays guitar along KLAUS HESS.There is nothing on this album that can be compared with what they released in the past. This is blues music, boogie music, well in the american vein from the time , real heartland spirit .

The first track COMIN' AGAIN is a long, long 9 mns jam that never seems to end as it become repetitive after a while,only played over the same 2 guitar chords. Music for smoky pubs with everybody stoned in the attendance.MOTHER YOU DON'T KNOW is a rather forgetable hard rock track with no originality whatsoever, the kind you have heard 10 000 times before. To make it more sounding mid-west, Maulcher handles the vocals with no finesse. He is not a singer, this is raw, raw raw as he has smoked 2 packs of Marlboro before singing ( or maybe he was still smoking)

Things are getting better with I NEED YOU, not that it is a masterpiece but at least it's pleasant listening with a simple but nice melody.WAY TO PARADISE is the best track of the album; PANKA the drummer sings on this one and this is definitely an improvement over MAULCHER. This is a nice acoustic ballad played gracefully that could have been featured on the first 2 albums.

But jammy hard rock is back in force with EARLY IN THE MORNING, more stoned music for the one who like this kind. JANE- SESSION is another jam, at least more pleasant as it is somewhat spacey with some good psychedelic guitar solo reminding me of HAWKWIND a little bit...and there are no vocals on this track!!!! Not bad, but this is only a long guitar solo after all.The following track ROCK N ROLL STAR ( you don't expect any prog with a title like that, do you?) stays in the same mould, regular second zone americanized style hard rock.The same sadly goes for the last track. BABY WHAT YOU'RE DOIN?...very prog title again.

This is hard to imagine this is the same band that recorded this album and their first two. Clearly, as JANE III was to be released as their first album in the USA, ths band thought that by ''amercanising '' their music, they would have a chance to hit it big time! Of course, no such thing would happen.

JANE III is DEFINITELY NOT the album to start with if you want to discover this band. I owned it for collection purpose, listen to it for this review but i don't think i am going to play it again in the foreseeable future ( unless i decide to get stoned, but no chance of that!)

1.5 STARS.

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