BLACK SEPTEMBER

In 1992 keyboard player Michael West released his solo album "God Sex Money", produced by Bill Berends from USA 'power-progrock' band MASTERMIND. Two years later that collaboration between Bill and Michael led to the production and release from the eponymous debut CD by BLACK SEPTEMBER. This four piece formation featured Micheal West on keyboards, Jason Harper on violin, bass and lead vocals, Jon Wilson on drums and percussion and Freddy Lutz on saxophone, bass and backing vocals.

The music on the six compositions (between 6 and 13 minutes) is often bombastic featuring dazzling keyboard runs and a dynamic, very propulsive rhythm-section. My highlights on this CD are Floodgates (Keith Emerson and Rick Wakeman inspired keyboard flights and a fiery saxophone solo) and Beast In Plain View (super-bombastic climate delivering swirling electric violin play and an ELP/Ars Nova atmosphere with amazing keyboard work). Despite the obvious hints from ELP and Ars Nova the sound from Black September is modern but at some moments a bit too much focussed on the sensational keyboards and power rhythm-section, I tend to loose my concentration during some parts. But in general this album contains lots of exciting, keyboard driven progrock. Unfortunately this album turned out to be their swansong, yet another good one shot band!

Behind a ghastly artwork (this album has therefore been banished from my living room), there are some nifty, nice symphonic prog.

ELP and Keith Emerson springs to mind after a couple of minutes. So does Magellan. It is pretty obvious that both bands is a good reference source, although Magellan had just started out back in 1994 and was probably not even started when the music at this album was being written. Saga too is another good reference. The music here is symphonic with an 1980s and 1990s feel to it. Bombastic as a tonne of bricks. The music calms down after a while and we even get a power ballad here in the form of Forever Winter. Remember, this was the early 1990s and obscene abnormalities like power ballads was in fashion. Forever Winter is not bad so this band is almost forgiven. It is though an AOR track and is out of tune with the rest of the album. AOR is something this album is touching base with too often on this album. I am not a fan of Ekseption and to my displeasure; I find a lot of their type of symphonic prog in this album. Add Trace too and you get the picture. There is a lot of cheap jingles like melody lines here. For me; the music on this album is not sophisticated. It sounds too commercial for sake of commercialism. This was the age of the TV series Miami Vice, remember. The music here fits nicely into that concept. The vocals is pretty dire too. The addition of violin and saxophone is pretty good though and a redeeming feature. The mastermind behind this music was not totally lost. Far from it.

I think this is a rather good synth based symphonic prog album. It has it's big flaws, yes. But it also have some good music. The standard in symphonic prog was set very high by the likes of PFM, Genesis, The Nice, Kansas, Yes and ELP. Black September is not in the same standard. But it is a good album. Consider a purchase if you are into American symphonic prog or ELP like prog. Shame about the artwork, though.

3 stars

Black September is one of the lesser known acts from USA from beggining of the '90s in prog scene. They released only one album self titled in 1994 and was issued by italian label Mellow records same year. The band was formed by Micheal West on keyboards who had a solo album 2 years before with God sex and money. This is keyboard dominated release very much in ELP direction, but aswell there is a good amount of sax and violin passages. Also the producer is Bill Berends one of the brothers from Mastermind fame(who produce Micheal West album aswell), and in places Black September has that Mastermind atmosphere in some passages. The lowest point are the vocals, who are not entirely bad, but lack of energy and great range, as example on Forever winter the vocals are almost awful at best, while the instrumental sections are more then ok. Not very much to add just if you are into Mastermind, ELP and keyboard dominated albums , Black September I think worth to be investigated. A forgotten band for sure. I prefer solo album of Michael West then this one. 3 stars, good but nothing special.