DON'T BRING THE RAIN

Aragon is a quite obscure Australian Neo-Prog band that started out somewhere in the mid to late 80's. Don't Bring The Rain was their first album and it surely carries some potential even if the final result is less than one might have hoped for. To give a crude description of the band's sound, one could say that they are a mix of Marillion and Rush. They fit well into the UK- dominated Neo-Prog category, but they also have slight elements of American acts such as Saga, Styx (some of the tunes on this album are very melodic with emphasis on the chorus) and, particularly, Rush. The vocals of Les Dougan sometimes remind a bit of those of Geddy Lee. As such, the music of Aragon, can be compared to that of British neo-proggers Galahad.

The sound quality of this recording is unfortunately not the best and, to be honest, neither is the instrumental performance of Tony Italia on the drums and John Poloyannis on guitars. But if you can look beyond the less than perfect sound quality, you will discover a set of nice songs. The only embarrassment is the Christmas song Solstice that should have been left off the album in my opinion.

The highlight of the album is the two-part epic Crucifixion which foreshadows the kind of music Arena would do a few years later on their two first albums. The drum frenzy at the end of the second part is interesting, but could surely have been better executed and so could the guitar work.

As I said, Don't Bring The Rain is a promising debut, but the promise is largely unfulfilled at this point.

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