FOUR MOMENTS

Sebastian Hardie's debut album was a long time coming - the band had been around in one form or another since 1967 - so you can't say the band didn't have plenty of time to thrash out an individual and distinctive identity for themselves. It's therefore something of a disappointment to listen to the album and find out they hadn't - the group work through the various typical symphonic influences (focusing on the mellow and pastoral end of the genre with bands like Genesis, Yes, Camel) and tick all the boxes without really presenting any new ideas of their own.

The performance is competent and listenable enough to convince me that Sebastian Hardie were probably a decent prog covers band in their time, but the material here contains nothing particularly head-turning. I can't see myself saying "You know what, I'm really in a Sebastian Hardie mood" - whilst the album is pleasant enough to listen to, it's even more enjoyable to listen to the classic albums it was influenced by all over again.