THE SERVICES OF MARY GOODE

The opening track is 'A Twist in the Tale of Earth History', this track starts with some spacey keyboards and a wailing guitar, sounding a little similar to early GENESIS, but it's not long before a slightly heavier guitar and keyboard riff take over creating a superb backdrop to Sue's excellent vocals. They're full of emotion and powerful when there's a need to be. I suppose you could say there is a slight similarity to RENAISSANCE. Also contained within the track are some sampled voices and lots of multiple keyboard sequences. What a great opening track.

The next track is 'OLDMAN', this is a quieter track with just a solo piano and Sue's vocals.

The third track 'Beneath The Boy', starts with some excellent guitar work from Ian and after a while quietens down before Sue's vocals come in. There's also some great keyboard's from Mike. This track reminds me a little of ARENA/PENDRAGON especially some of the keyboard work.

The next track 'The Services Of Mary Goode' is split into two parts. 'The Services of Mary Goode' and 'The Birth of Mary Goode', this track starts with the opening two bars from the hymn "To Be A Pilgrim" before some heavier guitar work comes, this is followed by some excellent keyboards and a soaring guitar. The track then quietens down to a church organ sound and then Sue's vocals come in, but this time they are a little softer until the chorus comes along then they become more powerful. There's also some military style drumming and quite a few interchanges of loud and quiet passages. The second part is more powerful with lots of keyboard/guitar interchanges.

The sixth track 'The Services Of Mary Goode', part III 'Mary Goode and the 'Dwarf Of Dreams', starts with some nice guitar and atmospheric keyboards, wind effects and some fine percussion which is followed by a solo piano and Sue's vocals.

The next track 'Joker', starts with a haunting melody, which at the same time is kinda spacey too. This then flows into a WAKEMAN-esque type sound similar to what he was doing around his 'Journey to the Centre of the Earth', 'King Arthur' period. The whole thing then changes completely into more a gothic style, in fact it's quite difficult to describe what follows as it is quite unusual although it does retain the haunting theme throughout even behind Sue's excellent vocals. There's also some excellent keyboards and guitar work.

'Julie Lies', is a fairly mellow track with Sue's vocals being very emotional.

The ninth and final track is 'The Services Of Mary Goode' part IV ' The Day That I fall' and what a wonderful track it is too. Starting with some soaring keyboards and a wailing guitar which lasts just over a minute the track then quietens down and Sue's vocals come in. Quiet verses, Loud and heavier chorus's and it's a catchy chorus too. In fact the whole track is catchy with some superb guitar and keyboard solos. There's also some nice harmonies towards the end of the track with an echo effect too and the keyboards here remind me quite a bit of Wakeman.

Overall, well what can I say other than this is a brilliant album, strong melodies, excellent musicianship and creative song writing producing in my mind one of the best progressive rock albums at the start of 1999. To be honest, I couldn't find any fault with this album at all and i will certainly be playing 'The Services Of Mary Goode' a lot in the near future. This is one album I can highly recommend and is a must for all lovers of Progrock.