Fish On Friday

Fish On Friday’s last album ‘Godspeed’ was, to me at least, a shocking reminder of just how good Prog music can be. Full of emotion and melody and with a mesmerising quality that coaxed Nick Beggs to join the band full time.
I have been waiting three years for the follow up and somehow they have moved the bar up a notch – or maybe two.

Multi-national they are based around Belgians Frank Van Bogaert (keys, guitar, vocals), William Beckers (keys), Marcus Weymaere (drums), Californian Marty Townshend (guitar) and Brit Nick Beggs but also multi-talented and while most of the album is highly melodic and has a dreamy quality to much of it, the music is also inventive and where they acknowledge their influences they also take the music to new directions – it isn’t unreasonable to think of them as the band that Alan Parsons always wanted to work with – in fact he produced the song ‘In The Key Of Silence’ and does backing vocals.

Within the review there is very little point in pulling out individual tracks because this is very much an album but it is reasonable to point out that every track is capable of standing alone and there are some sublime moments in with the merely superb. The eerie feel to the lovely ‘Snowed In’, Theo Travis’ flute and clarinet on ‘MH17’or the keyboards on ‘In The Key Of Silence along with some beautiful sax from Henri Ylen.

No musician is any more important than the rest here – this is a true ensemble album – but every one gets their ‘moment in the sun’ and they keep rining enough changes to keep you going back time and again.

One of the best genre albums I’ve heard this year, quite wonderful.