FANFARE & FANTASY

Having previously bought Disobey which was a fantastic debut album from the Scottish outfit Comedy Of Errors, I was intrigued as to what they might come up with to maybe match it. I should not have lost faith. Fanfare And fantasy is even better than Disobey in so many ways. firstly all the tracks are under 10 minutes in length and there is no epic track. The tracks are all epic though in there own way. The band appears to be pretty stable with the founding members, Jim Johnston on keyboards, Mark Spalding on guitar and bass and Joe Cairney once again on vocals. Bruce Levick who played drums on Disobey is back as menacing as ever with some fantstic stick trickery worthy of some of the best out there. He is now a fully fledged member of the band it would appear. the only strange part is Mark Spalding playing bass once more as he did on Disobey so I'm not sure whether the band have just not found the right person yet though I believe that John Fitzgerald now fills those shoes. The album kicks off with Fanfare For The Broken Hearted which has an acapella type singing. It breaks into a great keyboard section and if you dont tap along then you must indeed need your ears cleaned out. Something She Said is a well constructed piece with great keys and guitar work and Joe Cairney's voice once again appears to be on top form. In A Lifetime is pretty heavy in parts with the guitar giving it hat crunching sound and the solo is a work of art. Going For A Song was one of the tracks I heard live at Summers End and I'm sure they played it exactly as it says on the tin. Beauitiful keyboards swirling synths and great all round work by the rest of the band throughout this track. Merry Dance threw me a bit as I was expecting a Christmas type track although maybe it was just the Merry part of the title. Having got to the 5th track, there are none that even sound remotely the same and it is nothing like the Disobey album at all. It's a great credit that the band have not went out and recorded Disobey mark 2 which is what a lot of bands tend to do with a follow up album. The Cause was also heard live and it seemed like they were going back to the past a little with the lyrics in this song. They can be about troubles at home as welll as in other parts of the world and the meesage is there for all to hear. Times Motet And Galliard has the band going back to early classical style music and Jim Johnston doffs his cap to a few people here. Its a really beautiful first 4 and 1/2 minutes of sublime keyboards and nothing else and then the songs changes completely in the middle. I'm sure Gentle Giant or Gryphon would have been proud to have written this track and it shows that the band can really change things around. Remembrance is a really nice slow burner of a track and builds up nicely to vocals which Jon Anderson in his prime would have been proud of. The last track is called The Answer and although there is no epic tracks over 10 minutes on this album, this track is epic in every sense of the word. It is a great Neo Prog track that would be worthy on ny classic album from the 80's and gives a nod to Marillion and Pendragon though thats not a critisism. Comedy Of Errors have a style all of ther own and the band should take a bow to what I'm sure will be the best prog album of 2013 and will be hailed a classic in a few years time. Goodness knows what they will come up for the next album, but if Fanfare And Fantasy is anything to go by, then another classic awaits us I'm sure. Another 5 star album guys and it would have got 6 stars if I could have given it that.