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Red Jasper - A Midsummer Night's Dream CD (album) cover

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

Red Jasper

 

Prog Folk

3.51 | 30 ratings

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b_olariu
Prog Reviewer
3 stars Red Jasper is one of the forgotten folk prog bands from the early to mid '90's from british scene. Looking for their albums for years , only last year I was able to put my hands on two albums , this one A midsummer's night's dream and the next ine Winter's tale. Biggining their career in late '80's as a folk bad but with a special neo prog elements added here and there. This album was released in 1993 and far as I know draw little attention in prog scene. Red Jasper's music has a celtic atmosphere on some pieces, some folk moments but combined very well with neo prog arrangements. From folky moments Red Jasper was inspired from Steeleye Span , a legendary folk group from the '70's, some Jethro Tull moments and even in places some Strawbs is to be heared here but all this combined and very well played with neo prog elements not far from Marillion, Fish era, in fact Davey Dodds is close to Fish on vocal tone. Anyway the music is pleasent most of the time, dreamy with nice balance between acustical passages with mandolin with more rockier ones. While they never gained a wider recognition in prog circles, they made quite some intristing albums in the '90's. This album is based on themes from Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream. The songs deal with the tension between illusion and reality, love and marriage and the supernatural, so I might say is a concept album in some way but a vewry well done in the end. All pieces are great, specialy Virtual reality, a more up tempo tune close to neo prog , great voice by Davey Dodds and a couple more Berkana , and Invitation To A Dance, the rest are ok. A pleasent album for sure, a good album aswell, it desearves 3 stars from me, I like it, but I realy can't go to an upper star, because while the music is ok, great in places something is missing, I don't know what, maybe sometimes is to mellow for my taste. For fans who enjoy Steeleye Span , Strawbs, Marillion, Chandelier.
b_olariu | 3/5 |

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