JADE WARRIOR

Here we have the self-titled debut album from Jade Warrior, a unique British band from the 70's that mixed the Rock music of the times with New-Age, Jazz and World-Music influences. The latter are here predominately Latin despite the strongly Asian aesthetic of the cover art sleeve. The music here is occasionally close in nature to that of Santana; bluesy and jazzy guitar-based Rock with lots of Latin percussions. But also some African and Asian sounds and rhythms might be detected and some unique sounds are created. The guitar sound on opener The Traveller, for example, is very distinctive. The first side of the album is promising and it points toward what they would do better on later albums such as Last Autumn's Dream and Floating World. A Prenormal Day At Brighton is a more conventional song with Jethro Tull-like flutes featuring the line "I would like to see some more, but I'm really not sure" (which nicely sums up my reflections after hearing this album). The strongly percussive Masai Morning is a showcase for the group's experimental inclinations and also points towards future similar experiments. Here they sound quite similar to Black Widow on their debut album.

The second half of the album is significantly less interesting, however. Here they seem content to play more conventional Santana-like Jazz-Rock of the kind that would make up the bulk of the disappointing second Jade Warrior album, Released. I think that it is fair to calls this music Proto-Prog rather than anything else as it has a 60's feel to it.

A promising but somewhat premature debut from Jade Warrior. They would do better things later on.

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