ANAGRAMARY

Just as SI Music briefly transformed into Cymbeline before collapsing entirely - leaving various albums, such as this one, adrift on the market without any record company publicity behind it - so too were Red Jasper in the process of transformation as they unleashed Anagramary on the world.

What was going on behind the scenes to prompt this? According to the liner notes to the 2012 Angel Air edition, Davey Dodds - the characterful frontman of the group whose big personality and mandolin had been such a cornerstone of their sound - was less engaged with the album sessions than he had been previously, with the result that his contributions were dialled back. Whether Dodds would agree with that picture or have a significant new perspective to offer is unclear - to my knowledge, he's been happy to stay on the sidelines rather than getting involved in Red Jasper business, and he wasn't involved in their reunion in the 2010s, so I don't think we've had his side of the story.

Nonetheless, the idea that Dodds was on the way out - whether that be down to him deciding he'd done enough with the group, or his artistic goals and theirs diverging, or some other reason - seems plausible when listening to this. It's on the vocal front that it becomes obvious he's scaled back his involvement - Dave Clifford emerges from behind the drums to sing on a couple of songs, which is jarring given how distinctive Dodds' vocals are, and on the songs Dodds does sing his performance doesn't quite seem to have the fire behind it. He can still belt the songs out just fine - but it doesn't quite feel like he believes it this time around.

On top of that, his mandolin, which had previously been such a key element of the Red Jasper sound, is simply gone, and the folk influences on their sound are scaled back. Arguably, the history of Red Jasper has been one of gradually stripping away aspects of their sound; they began playing a punk/folk/neoprog mashup which was alright, but they gained focus once they set the punk part of that equation side and dialled up the folk a tad, resulting in a folk/neoprog blend which was truly unique. Here, they start to dial back the folk - the problem being that this steers them into a generic neoprog direction which is much less distinctive and interesting than what came before.

Anagramary is competent enough, but to me the magic is already drifting away from Red Jasper at this point. Their hiatus was a shame, but perhaps necessary to recharge their creative batteries; even when Anagramary catches fire, it's not doing an awful lot that preceding albums didn't do better and with more originality.