ABEL GANZ - The Danger Of Strangers (Remaster + Bonus tracks) CD

The 2008 remaster of an album from the eighties by a progressive rock band from Glasgow that somehow managed to escape fame and fortune completely and remain in cult obscurity to this
day...... all of which seems more than a tad unfair when you consider that, in comparison to the giants of eighties prog that were Marillion, IQ and the legacy of what used to be Genesis, this band stood shoulder to shoulder alongside all of them and at no time were found wanting...... as this superbly remastered album testifies. With what you'd call the “classic progressive rock line-up” of assorted guitars, massed ranks of synths and keys, the ever dependable rhythm section, and two vocalists who could more than give the likes of Collins, Gabriel, Fish and Nicholls, a run for their money, the band cruise, glide, soar and power their way through a clutch of original prog-rock tracks with meaningful, insightful and absorbing lyrics on songs that are intricately arranged, perfectly played, excellently sung and conveying all the emotion you could hope to expect from what is essentially a Classic Prog Rock band. Boasting two tracks from original vocalist Alan Reed, more famous for his work with Scottish prog-rockers Pallas (arguably not as good as this band), the quality and feeling of the vocals throughout the album are exactly what you want from bands that grew up adoring the likes of Yes, Floyd and Genesis. The tracks themselves are from four and a half to over twelve minutes long, with plenty of instrumental space but no noodling, nothing overblown or overbearing, arrangements that keep both eyes and ears on melody, dynamics and structure, with no flashy soloing, no elongated incidents of musical mass murder, instead everything kept tight and flowing, the hallmark of a truly great prog rock band. There's not a less than riveting track on the whole album, and if ever you've enjoyed an album by any of the aforementioned, more famous, prog rock bands, then you owe it to yourself to discover this band, since a treat of a musical experience awaits.
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