OF QUEUES AND CURES

Canterbury darlings of jazz rock National Health followed up their debut with a delightful musical triumph "Of Queues and Cures". One would hope, having enjoyed the debut, that there would be more of the same, including Amanda Parsons beauteous vocals, and a lot of inventive jazz fusion. It is missing the vocals this time round but still delivers, perhaps even moreso than the debut musically speaking. The guitar melodies of Phil Miller, and Dave Stewart's keyboard wizardry along with the sporadic jazz drumming of Pip Pyle, return on this followup and bassist John Greaves inventive rhythms replace those of Neil Murray, and he even has a stint at crooning on 'Binoculars'.

The album cover features a jar full of ears and perhaps this symbolises that to enjoy this album you need to put on a new set of ears. This will appeal to those who like fractured time sigs and extreme jazz and I am certainly one who enjoys prog with broken time sigs and innovative experimentation. It begins with sweet whistling birds and Stewart's lulling keyboards and suddenly breaks into jazz figures to tantalise even the most disconcerted music listener.

'The Callapso' certainly moves into many competing musical shapes, with strong textures of bright colourful rhythms and dynamic soloing on guitar. This is followed by a positive experimental string dominated moody piece called 'Squarer for Maud' clocking 11 and a half minutes. It sounds like a cat stalking in a dark alley in the intro. The atmosphere is darker and the fuzz on the guitar is very appropriate. The jazz outbreak works well, along with the percussion finesse. It even has odd time sig changes that unsettle and are hard to pin down in places. This is a triumphant instrumental with huge variations in pace and rhythmical structure. I gave up counting the time sigs as it becomes highly complex in the mid section with a massive time shift and then it suddenly breaks into a weird narrative. The narration reminded me of King Crimson's Indiscipline. After this the guitars soar in again and there is a strange time sig that never sounds quite right yet works against the keyboard motif. It is great to hear so many instruments competing against each other. This is the best track from the band and well worth a listen to see how genius music can be played if one is versatile enough. The ending is masterful with scratching violins answering a jaunty beat that never stays on one bar for long. At the end of it I am exhausted and can't wait to play it again.

'Binoculars' is another lengthy track to savour the musical palette. Stewart's keyboards are spacey and emotional, and then we hear the vocals of Neil Murray. It is a pleasant break from all the instrumental work and sounds decidedly like Robert Wyatt with quite a bit of humour in the lyrics; "mule kicks, nerves twitch, legs kick, it's a shame to say you're such a bore today, your expression has gone away, If you just sit on your arse, the whole world won't pass, it's such a farce, it was quite insane?" All in all this is quite a nice song with a whimsical Canterbury flavour. The majestic flourishes in the mid section are wonderful. A classic song by any standards.

The album does not disappoint, as it is replete with full blown experimental jazz shapes and innovative musicianship. This album is a more mature approach though I missed Amanda's vocals. There is a great deal of brass on this album and it shines as a great example of Canterbury prog in the same vein as Matching Mole or Hatfield and the North. It is another album that cements National Health's reputation as one of the best Canterbury or jazz fusion acts in the business.