Call Upon The Author

According to their press release, The Enid have been on a long hiatus. They haven’t been around since their split in 1988, but have returned to inflict their prog-rock on an unsuspecting world once more. And how is it? Well…
It may be that this CD was placed in the hands of the wrong reviewer. I’m a thirty year old girl (alright, woman, don’t rub it in!!) who likes metal, emo and rock, and has never been a fan of the mind altering substance. If you’re either a teenager, or a guy who well remembers the 60′s and 70′s, and someone who enjoys a little extra-curricular perception changing activity, this may be the album for you. I have to say, I did not enjoy it.
Despite the vague promise held in album opener Terra Firma, (which controversially for this album contains vocals, lyrics AND instruments) this is just too weird to enjoy. Each track is at least 5 minutes long, and some comprise mostly silence interspersed with the odd weird noise. Track three, Space Surfing, does have a vocal track, but it’s sung in an annoying cockney accent and seems like a bit of a joke amongst all the rest of the tracks.
Speaking of the rest of the tracks, Journey’s End is more like a sci-fi film soundtrack than an album: and as such, it could have been great. It’s evocative of revealing shots – it brings to mind planets twirling into view, and huuuuuge spaceships drifting across the screen. As accompaniment, it would be excellent – as an LP, it ain’t. I may be uneducated, but to me it’s trying to hard to be different and clever, with the resulting album just sounding like a cobbled together collection of noises.
In conclusion, there is a definite audience for prog-rock, and I’m sure you’re well aware of who you are. I have been known to enjoy the odd bit of early Genesis (I’m talking Peter Gabriel, never Phil Collins. Damn you to hell Phil Collins.), King Crimson and Floyd – I don’t hate the genre by any stretch of the imagination. The Enid, however, have failed to provide me with a good reason to return to it. I shall stick to my non-progressive rock, cheers very much.