BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL

After the commercial and artistic success of their last 2 albums FIRE WATER & EARTH and JANE ''LIVE AT HOME'', JANE was on a roll and decided to go further into prog territory with an attempt at producing the ''classic'' JANE masterpiece that would be viewed as their artistic crowning achievement later on. Not that this goal has been met, but BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL is often considered as one of their best.

JANE like any real good prog band tried to produce a ''suite'' or ''epic'' with the almost 20mns long title track. BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL is a good song sure to please any space progger but is no 5 star masterpiece in my scale as the different sections sometimes don't adjust well together. It starts with a very creepy spacey 2mn athmosphere before a gilmouresque guitar/vocal appear leading to a little hard rockish part that could have used a little bit more creativity, especially on the vocal side. Then it's time for ex-ELOY M. WIECZORKE to create a mellotronish soundscape giving guitarist KLAUS HESS room to play a SAUCERFUL OF SECRETS-like guitar athmospherique solo.

Then all of a sudden, monk chants appear before the main Pink-floydish AHM/MEDDLE style theme ends the suite. That's a good piece, but that's not HAMBURGER CONCERTO if you know what i mean.Not all the parts fit well as the suite sometimes suffer from a lack of unity and could have used more creative brainstorm before entering the studio. But i suspect the recording company pressured the band to take advantage of their new popularity and record a new album as fast as possible.

The second song TWILIGHT is more on the hard rock side starting slowly before an addictive guitar riff enters the scene with a great guitar solo ( as usual) and the song goes back to prog-Jane with beautiful melancholic spacey keyboards sounds...and a harp! very nice indeed! VOICE IN THE WIND is a very spacey romantic ballad, very sad with again lush dramatic keyboards, Gilmouresque sensitive guitar and reflective vocals.

I don't know why the last song YOUR CIRCLE has been included here! It has nothing to do with the rest of the album. This is a simple hard rock tune with a riff MARC BOLAN would have loved. There is absolutely nothing remotely prog on this song . I know we were in 1977 and times were changing, but i think it was again the fact that the band was rushed in the studio and didn' t have enough new material to release. A few more months to think this product over and BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL could have been perfect, but that's not the case.

BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL is a good JANE album, but if you are starting with band, i recommend their first album TOGETHER, their second HERE WE ARE and of course the sublime JANE ''LIVE AT HOME ''.

3 STARS.

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