Album title: Brass Rock 1
Artist: Heaven
Nationality: English
Label: CBS
Chronology: Debut and only
Tracklisting: Things I Should’ve Been/ This Time Tomorrow/ Never Say Die /Come Back/ Song for Chaos/ Morning Coffee (A Theme from a Film)/ Number One (Last Request)/ Number Two (Down at the Mission)/ Dawning/ Got to Get Away
Comments: I wonder if there’s such a thing as progressive punk? Given how much punk rockers hated prog, it would be hilariously ironic if there was. Perhaps there is. Apparently anything can be progressive, as witness progressive brass. Yeah. These guys had only the one album, and to be honest it sounds like this could be more jazz or big band than prog, but there’s a genre tag of jazz fusion, so I guess fire up them trumpets boys: we’re goin’ in!
Kind of sounds like the theme to a seventies cop show, as I think I said somewhere else, but this really is, that is until the guitars bite into the tune and it takes on a more hard rock persona, but then the singer is pure blues, so find your prog here if you can, and you’ll be a better man than me. Don’t get me wrong: it’s great music, and very catchy, but I just don’t see the “p” word anywhere. “This Time Tomorrow” has a more, um, flutey opening and then settles down into a sort of softer vein with some nice sharp guitar coming through, reminds me of Santana (hey, gimme a break! I’m not well versed in jazz fusion artists) but I would say too much flute here for my tastes. Not a big fan of this. “Never Say Die” is better, rocks along with real purpose with a sort of semi-country vibe, good fiddle work and no god-damn flute.
I detect a kind of Mexican/Mariachi tone to “Come Back”, which I really like, while “Song for Chaos”, despite its interesting title, fails to keep my interest. Nice trumpet solo near the end I guess. “Morning Coffee (A Theme from a Film)” - and I don’t know if it actually is; well, I don’t care, has a nice relaxed vibe going for it and this is then blown away into the sky by “Number One (Last Request)” which, I have to say, if it were my last request this would not be it. Very chaotic and quite annoying. “Number Two (Down at the Mission)”, while I must force myself to avoid the obvious toilet reference, don’t do nothing for me neither. How’s that for a bunch of double negatives? You ain’t seen not nothing yet pal, you ain’t. Seriously, much better is “Dawning”, a slow almost folky song where for once the flute actually does not annoy me, in fact it enhances the song, and we end on the rather excellent and laid-back “Got to Get Away,” however although it would be unkind to say that’s what I’m thinking now, this album, while a decent one, still has not shown me any reason why it should be regarded prog rock of any stripe. Maybe guitars and fiddles and flutes mixed with brass makes it progressive brass, but I’m as wise now as I was when I began, which is not very,
Favourite track(s): Things I Should’ve Been, Never Say Die, Dawning, Got to Get Away
Least favourite track(s): This Time Tomorrow, Number One (Last Request)
Personal Rating: 2.0