HIGH TIDE

High Tide actually was one of the few bands here that I discovered before it has been added to the archives. I have to say I like their second release a bit more than their highly acclaimed (well I guess by Metal- and not by Prog fans) debut.

The opener is starting quite fine in fact and of course the electric violin is great. Neverthess the song doesn't offer too much variation later on for its length and starts becoming a bit boring, but still a fairly good hardrock song. Second track The Joke is done very much better starting with a bit odd classical intro and offering much more variation with some more heavy sections and as well some more in a folk-ish vein with very nice violin. Highlight of the very short album is of course the over 14 minutes long Saneonimous. It starts with great guitar lines, violin playing a second different voice and very good rhythm section. Then there is a second part starting acoustically with guitar and some piano until violin and vocals are entering. Really excellent! Then a short guitar solo and things are becoming more heavy again for quite a while with fantastic guitar riffing and violin playing. Finally there is again a more quiet part similar to the middle one.

I'm not quite sure whether this album is really an essential one in Prog and moreover it just has a bit more than half an hour and only 2 tracks of the 3 are really excellent. Still I'd like to rate it with 4 star since I like it quite a lot. Actually I combined their first two albums on a CD and if you do like this you end up with a rather versatile album with more than one hour of great music and

an excellent addition to any prog collection!