OTHER CRIMES AND MISDEMEANOURS II

A decade ago I bought this album by the band I thought was quite famous at the time and hoped it would be good. Later on I discovered the progarchives track Bug Eye which more or less proved to be what I also hoped from this album of 1997. But what a huge difference in style and quality it proved to be.

I played it once or twice after I bought it but can still remember neglecting it from then on because of the disappointment it appeared to be. This album is a poor effort because of the very low grade of progressiveness it contains. It starts off fairly nice with Session one with some good guitarwork in two songs that just stand the test of quality (3 stars at best). But from then on it just gets poorer and poorer ending up as an album with very accessible music, so accessible that we are dealing with plain pop music it seems and then not even good pop music. That's not why I buy progressive albums !

So because of this essential fact (at least for me) I cannot give this anymore than two stars and absolutely don't recommend this to those who (like me) are much delighted with the Bug Eye sort of music by this band.

During the summer of 95' it was a time for the second ''Other Crimes & Misdemeanours'' compilation by Galahad.It was originally released as a fan-club cassette album by Avalon, re- issued a couple of years later in CD format.It consists of tracks recorded by the band between 1986 and 1991, featuring previously unreleased material along with some reworkings from the first ''Other Crimes & Misdemeanours'' compilation.

The first couple of tracks ''Dreaming From the Inside'' and ''The Opiate'' are absolute rarities, being the first ever recorded material by Galahad in a proper studio, ending up to the first very rare 7'' single of the group.It shows Galahad at their best, superb theatrical vocals by Nicholson next to the fantastic keyboard flashes of Mike Hooker and Nick Hodgson, with the MARILLION influence being more than evident.Fantastic material.The next sum of tracks are early-90's Galahad recordings in various studios, featuring both reworked and rare unreleased compositions.And they just proove how good this band was at their early stage, unfortunately most of this superb material did not make it in an official Galahad album.Powerful, raw but also sensitive Neo Prog of awesome quality and inspiration with plenty of symphonic leanings, extremely dynamic guitar playing, a pounding rhythm section, accesible choruses, flashy synths but also very demanding instrumental breaks.Notice that the 2009 release of ''Other Crimes & Misdemeanours parts II & III'' contains also a fantastic instrumental medley clocking at 23 minutes, from a 91' live night when Nicholson was ill and the rest of the crew decided to come up with this excellent material, where well-known tunes are blended with Galahad's material to result a very virtuosic, highly melodic and fairly proggy long instrumental trip.

As with ''Other Crimes & Misdemeanours I'', this second compilation of Galahad's early days brings memories of this romantic period of Progressive Rock in UK, when almost every band adapting this sound produced excellent material full of energy, emotion and passion.Highly recommended...and maybe even more if you love the early stages of Neo Progressive Rock.