ADOLESCENCE OF AN ANCIENT WARRIOR

Another record worth a review..... this only effort by this ensemble came in 1986, wrapped in a beutiful cover with dwarves and elves. And also the music envelops you in a magic storm of keyboards and guitars tunes, but.... not everything goes so fine: a little weakness of the singer and a sound production rather caotic and with poor quality stop the work to fly higher. But after all, a rather good production, in the vein of Genesis (wind&w. period) and Camel.

One of the weaker offerings from the sympho-prog explosionette in 1980's Japan. Fairly flimsy synth-oriented sympho-prog, bordering on neo-prog. Singing bass player Hideaki Murata tries for that Gabriel-esque theatrical thing, but he doesn't have the pipes. The title song is an attempt at the "multiple voices" thing a la "The Battle Of Epping Forest", and is a complete joke. Lyrically, it's totally laughable, with even worse English lyrics than Novalis' notorious BANISHED BRIDGE. "Gabble" especially. And Murata's mush-mouthed delivery is no help.

The low point is a short vocal song with electronic drums whose title I can't replicate here: its title is the concatenated "ng" glyph found in the pronunciation key to some dictionaries. It's followed by the instrumental "Plug Cord II", which is probably the album's highlight, along with the surprisingly lively "A Low Value Counting Clock". The album's "epic"-the thirteen minute "Against The Wind-is predictably disappointing, just pointless and meandering.

When I discovered the wonderful Japanese progrock in the early Nineties, this album was often described as a smal gem. The cover art is stunning, in the vein of our Dutch master Hiernonymus Bosch who often blended religion, surrealism and horror. The music is less captivating, it has echoes from mid-Genesis featuring Hackett-like guitar and Banks-like keyboards. The compositions has some good momens but the poor vocals and monotone drumming are very irritating. I recommend Outer Limits, Pageant, Gerard and Ars Nova as starters to the Japanese progrock.

Yes the vocals are awful, sounds like the singer simply cannot sing and/or has no tool for singing. This circumstance would seemingly make any listener lower the rating of the album. On the other hand, the so-called voice of Murata-san is only a little worse than Peter Gabriel's. And all the world praises Gabriel as a great vocalist, lots of younger singers try to imitate him... OK if so, then we must consider Murata's vocal quite acceptable and not influencing on the album rating. As for the melody making, arrangements, instrumentation, album construction, performance and musicianship, I'd say all are top or close to top. Please pay special attention to Low-Value Counting Clock, I think no other 1980s artist developed the traditions of Genesis' Foxtrot so properly and nimbly. And please pay VERY special attention to the last two minutes of Low-Value Counting Clock, that theme is really a great find, it could make the album good even if the remaining music on the album was mediocre. But the other four tracks are also fine. Inventive, often unexpectedly developing, and very traditional, very Foxtrotesque if you allow. I'm not sure that traditionality is always a merit. Rather otherwise. However, the band Ataraxia, during its short creative life, knew very well how to be traditional and distinctive at the same time.