England, Forever England

ENGLAND: a Symphonic Prog band from the golden era of British prog, who play music that's as grand and imposing as THE IMPERIAL HOTEL in the West End of London. England sound as English as the GARDEN SHED at the bottom of an English country garden. Incidentally, the cover of their 1977 GARDEN SHED album was a humorous ironic reference to the Golden Shred brand of marmalade. England have often been compared to Yes, and deservedly so, when you hear their symphonic majesty in all of its musical pomp and splendour. England were also the clear winners in the first of my recent Prog Britannia polls. They released an archive mid-1970's collection of unreleased songs in 1997, titled THE LAST OF THE JUBBLIES and they made a comeback tour of Japan in 2006, which subsequently became the LIVE IN JAPAN: KIKIMIMI album. England's latest album, BOX OF CIRCLES, was released as recently as 2018. Just to confuse matters, there was also a completely unrelated English band going by the name of England, who released a self-titled album of Jazz-Rock in 1976, and on a side note, a close musical friend of mine was the sound engineer for England's KIKIMIMI tour of Japan.

Edited by Psychedelic Paul - August 19 2020 at 12:21

Great band! 

BrufordFreak wrote: Great band!  Question, Paul:  Why did this band never reach the heights of popularity and recognition that Yes, Genesis, Floyd or even GG, Renaissance, and VDGG achieve? Record label? Radio play? Not enough gigging? Critical snubbery?

ENGLAND - Garden Shed (1977)

The Last of the Jubblies (1997)

Edited by Psychedelic Paul - July 27 2020 at 22:27

Box of Circles (2018)

BrufordFreak wrote: Great band!  Question, Paul:  Why did this band never reach the heights of popularity and recognition that Yes, Genesis, Floyd or even GG, Renaissance, and VDGG achieve? Record label? Radio play? Not enough gigging? Critical snubbery?

Garden Shed is a nice album but from what I recall very derivative of Yes, Genesis and Queen. I found it a bit on the twee side, personally.

Edited by Mascodagama - July 28 2020 at 05:05

Psychedelic Paul wrote: Mascodagama wrote: Garden Shed is a nice album but from what I recall very derivative of Yes, Genesis and Queen. I found it a bit on the twee side, personally.   I've been in the Garden Shed in England listening to England's albums for three days in a row now amongst the potting plants, and I never tire of hearing them, and being derivative of Genesis and Yes is a positively good thing to my eyes and ears.

I have Garden Shed and Jubblies....good music and though I have listened to them many times it never quite