BANQUET

The sparkling write-ups this album often gets baffle me I'm afraid, and the goat-sacrificing image these guys have is even less apparent, at least in the music. Though sometimes heavy and sporadically prog, it offers surprisingly little heavy progressive rock. I must be missing something. Yes, that must be it.

At least that was my first impression. As it turns out, this group's fourth release is not that bad. In fact it's pretty damn cookin'. Opener and revealingly-titled 'Our World is a Rock 'n Roll Band' is just fine; well-recorded and arranged with bright horns and lush strings, the band swinging tightly with a rave-up sensibility tempered by commercial sophistication, the center melting apart with Peter Hecht's Fender piano, John Lawton's solid vocals, Dieter Horns's pulsing bass and a snappy drum break from Herbert Bornhold. Eleven-minute 'Spanish Galleon' is similar but with higher energy and cinematics, numerous changes and undoubtedly qualifies as progressive rock. The huge 'Thus Spoke Oberon' is Hair-like musical theater filled with enormous energy that pours through, and 'High Flying Lady Goodbye' loses us a bit with sugary vocals but is revived by robust 12-minute 'Sorrow', a popping horn arrangement in the manner of Blood,Sweat & Tears and maybe unintentional flashes of mid-period U.F.O.

A different kind of Prog that puts emphasis on the soul, contemporary beats, cheesy orchestration and clashing styles of the mid 1970s, and there's certainly nothing wrong with that.