A national treasure that was almost lost forever
Artiste: The Enid
Nationality: British (English)
Album: In the region of the summer stars
Year: 1976/1984
Label: EMI
Genre: Progressive Rock
Tracks:
Fool
The Tower of Babel
The Reaper
The Loved Ones
The Demon King
Pre-dawn
Sunrise
The Last Day
The Flood
Under the summer stars
Adieu
Chronological position: Debut album
Familiarity: Zero, but I've heard about them
Interesting factoid:
Initial impression: Mystical, magical, relaxing.
Best track(s): Fool, The Reaper, The loved ones, Pre-dawn, Sunrise, The last day
Worst track(s): None
Comments: Would it be overreacting to say that to compose an album based on the Tarot could be an exercise in bad luck? Of course it would, and yet this album seems to have been dogged by the worst luck possible. The debut album from the enigmatic band known as The Enid, it was supposed to have vocals but then their singer took his own life just before the album was due to be recorded, and remaining members had to quickly make the decision to release it as an instrumental one. Then, after failing to generate great sales, EMI deleted it from their catalogue. In 1984 The Enid re-released it themselves, and after poor quality bootlegs had been circulated they convinced the label to allow them re-record and update it in 2010.
So essentially there are three versions of the album; the original one (which if you have it is a collector's item now) the re-released 1984 version (which I'm using here) and the remastered 2010 effort. Based as I say around the idea of the Tarot, the original song titles were changed for the 1984 release, making them less obviously to do with the Tarot, with the original seven tracks being extended to ten and substantial changes made to the arrangements of the 1976 songs. I like the opener with its mystical sound, and
The Reaper doesn't really sound as ominous as you might think, with some nice acoustic guitar and some tolling bells, some nice fluty sounds and a powerful guitar solo.
As might be expected,
The loved ones is a sumptuous but simple piano piece that really reminds me of Rachmaniov, one of my favourite composers: just beautiful. It's quite amazing how Robert John Godfrey can make the piano such a heartfelt instrument, a thing of beauty in that track and then on the next make it almost demonic! That's real talent for you. I'm not completely familiar with the Tarot --- I know of it, and my sister can read it --- but I did previously review a slightly similar project by Dark Moor (imaginatively called "Tarot"!") so I can appreciate what The Enid are doing here, symbolising various cards and aspects of the Tarot through music, somewhat similar to what the great Gustav Holst did back at the beginning of the last century.
Sunrise is the first track wherein I can hear proper progressive rock elements; prior to this a lot of it has been what I would term classical/prog really, but here the keyboards really speak in a Yes/Genesis/ELP way. Going back to that, there's again an almost "Bolero" feel to
The Last Day, quiet soft marching drumming and gentle horns until some powerful guitar and a rising background melody punches the whole thing up to a real cinematic level. It breaks into some fine progressive work then and finishes really well with an explosive title track which then slips into a little piano piece aptly titled
Adieu.
Overall impression: Very accomplished, very impressive. One hell of a debut! Glad this wasn't lost forever, no thanks to shortsighted EMI executives!
Intention: I'd certainly be interested in hearing more of their music now.