REFUGEE

Refugee is a fantastic album especially if you are a fan of ELP as it is very much in this style. Not very surprising as there are 2/3 of The Nice in the lineup. The last musician is the keyboard wiz Patrick Moraz which also played on the Relayer album from Yes. So not surprisingly the musicians are outstanding.

The organ is the most frequently used keyboard on the album, but Moraz uses other keyboards as well. The music evolves around the classical inspired keyboards from Moraz and the pounding rythm section. This is show off prog rock of the highest caliber. Not far from what ELP did on Brain Salad Surgery. The singer is even a bad imitation of Greg Lake. This is the albums weakest point. The vocal lines are not that good and they are sung even worse, but IMO this is the same case with ELP. There are also influences from Beggar´s Opera.

This is not why you should have this album though. The instrumental parts are outstanding prog rock and the vocals are seldom there and when they are they are always followed by some crazy organ licks, so don´t let the fact that the vocals are not so good scare you away. This is excellent prog.

If you are looking for emotional prog rock, look elsewhere because this is full blown noodling all the way. But what great noodling this is. The noodling is also the reason that this album is a 4 star album and not a masterpiece 5 star album though. I really like the instrumental parts on the album, but I do miss some more emotional vocal parts to make it complete. This is highly recommendable though.