DEMONS AND WIZARDS

With a delicious '70's vibe, elegant vocals, energetic rockin', and psychedelic camp, "Demons and Wizards" is a tremendously enjoyable, if somewhat light-weight release which accomplishes little except tickle classic-rock sensabilities with the lightest of progressive flair.

The album as a whole is optimistic, cheerful, energetic, and at times quite beautiful. The vocal melodies and lead singing of Byron are very memorable, as is the occasionally creative guitar work which cranks out a nice combination of heavy licks and tones. With the exception of some of the lyrical content and great keyboard playing of Hensley, there isn't much here to label this group as "prog"; these are straight-forward, typical, early '70's hard rock. Not especially hard now mind you, but still quite good, and always enjoyable. The biggest impact is made by the mood of the album, which will almost certainly strike a chord with the listener.

But, looking deeper we don't see much more than that. Appealing, certainly, but not a masterstroke of artistic genius. "Demons and Wizards" is then a fun diversion into thoughtful '70's rock, maybe smarter than its peers, but nothing to engender itself as a hallmark of the genre. Although it clearly has the coolest title of almost any rock album... ever.

Songwriting: 3 Instrumental Performances: 3 Lyrics/Vocals: 4 Style/Emotion/Replay: 4