D.S. AL CODA

After the release of Of Queues And Cures, National Health was joined by cellist Georgie Born and bassoonist Lindsay Cooper, who had played guest roles on the album and had previously been John Greaves' bandmates in Henry Cow. One can only dream of what sort of material this miniature chamber orchestra would be capable of producing, but it sadly wasn't to be: frustrated with the band's consistent lack of success, Dave Stewart finally decided enough was enough and pulled the plug on his involvement with the project in order to join Bill Bruford's band. The band fell apart after this: Miller, Pyle and Greaves managed to reunite with Alan Gowen for a few more tours in 1979, but there was no more desire to record a new album beyond that.

This changed in 1981, when Gowen died of leukaemia at the age of 33. In order to commemorate him, Stewart, Miller, Pyle and Greaves reunited one more time to record an album featuring a number of Gowen's compositions. The resulting product was released as the final National Health album in 1982.

D.S. Al Coda is much more of a product of its time than its predecessors. The production style is more monotone and definitely shows some 80s influence, with Dave Stewart's synthesizers dominating the sound (rather than his usually wide variety of different keyboards) while the more exotic instruments are far less prominent than on the last album (Elton Dean and Jimmy Hastings show up on saxophone and flute respectively on a few tracks, but that's about it). Even Pip Pyle's drums are electronically enhanced, as was the standard at the time. This move is accentuated by the first track, "Portrait Of A Shrinking Man", which is atypical for National Health, to say the least: a slightly funky yet melancholic groove prominently featuring a fretless bass and a horn section. It's more or less similar to what bands like Weather Report were doing at the time, which for this band's standards isn't too exciting but it's still fun to listen to, and the main melody is really catchy too.

An album full of stuff like that would have probably been a let-down, but thankfully "Portrait Of A Shrinking Man" is actually an anomaly on the album. While all of the material is far more jazz-inspired than on National Health's previous albums, only two other tracks on D.S. Al Coda follow a traditional jazz fusion pattern, but both feel way more loose and grant far more freedom to the musicians than the opening track (just listen to Pyle bashing away on "Black Hat"! Just listen to that synthesizer-guitar duel that kicks off "I Feel A Night Coming On"!).

Most of the songs on this album were written just before and during the 1979 tours and had not been published up until this point, but two songs had previously been released in the 1970s by Gilgamesh, Gowen's original band. In my opinion, the versions presented on this album are superior: National Health's frantic, hard-rocking take on the complex "TNTFX" blows the feeble original out of the water. On the other hand, "Arriving Twice", which was originally just a nice little folky interlude on Gilgamesh's debut album, is here turned into an incredibly sad and mournful tune, like a final salute from the musicians to their deceased comrade. The same feeling exudes from "Shining Water", which is a lot longer and a lot faster, but equally bittersweet. When the final chords of the song start to ring, you almost believe them to be guiding their composer to heaven.

Then (after the totally unremarkable "Tales Of A Damson Knight", which is probably the band's least interesting song) comes the centrepiece of the album, which starts with "Flanagan's People": a high-paced track that starts off resembling "I Feel A Night Coming On", with another synthesized guitar solo from Miller, before it abruptly cuts to a quiet electric piano-based shuffle. This is followed by a more chaotic part, but eventually the quiet comes out on top as the piece segues into "Toad Of Toad Hall", which is a true masterpiece in the National Health style. Over the course of 7,5 minutes, the tension is supremely built up, evolving from a peaceful flute solo to a dissonant prog-rocking beat and finally culminating in an explosive jazz jam, where Dave Stewart plays a final synth solo before bringing the piece to a close.

Overall, the effect of this album is very strange. The production style and the music are clearly disconnected: these are still the same experimental-minded musicians that brought us "Tenemos Roads", but even though the compositions themselves may not suffer from it, it seems the guys finally gave up their wholly uncompromising attitude in order to get this album on the market at all. Maybe it's for the best that they called it quits afterwards then, although it's obvious they weren't in the mood to continue the project anyway. The epic, uplifting themes of the first two albums are gone: while many moments on D.S. Al Coda are still quite rousing, the band's youthful optimism has given way to a gloomy state, which in a certain sense is appropriate seeing as how the album was meant as a threnody. Progressive rock is often accused by critics of insincerity or fake emotionality, but D.S. Al Coda is without a doubt this band's most heartfelt statement.