Mr. Quimby’s Beard s/t

One of the biggest difficulties of separating the good from the bad is the way even the good will start to stack up after a while and make even halfway decent albums start to fall to 8s and 9s. Ask anyone on Gnosis and you’re not likely to hear that these grades mean anything particularly good even if literally both are still above average. The way I start to call it after a while is by making sense of those middle piles on their own terms, or in other words, if the 9 was the peak, I’m standing there starting to send things over both sides of the hill, which is particularly crumbly and eroding on the not-so-pleasant side. What, you might ask, has this to do with Mr. Quimby’s Beard? Well it just went over the other side, but not before I kind of jumped for a second, because it’s a decision made mostly on the fact that there’s much better things, even in their field which revolves somewhere around Pink Floyd while occasionally pulling away from orbit as the Ozric’s go zinging on by. But I can’t think of anything at all, whether it be psychedelic bliss out or one of their Dark Side-ish songs that makes me feel that I’d need this for any other reason than making their influences look good by comparison. It’s OK, definitely not bad, hey, live they might stomp this into the ground.

Various Artists - Brain Festival Essen

This record does little more than make me wish it happened a bit earlier in time as Brain’s stable by this point was looking mighty sketchy. Release Music Orchestra have a rather fine long number here, but Gate, Jane, Novalis and Ruphus are mostly mixes that bring down the lot. Jane could have been Mr Quimby’s Daddy with their faux-Floyd thing of the time. Ruphus might have been a decent jazz rock group without the rather tacky vocalist. Gate want to mix it up with dull rock numbers and the occasional progressive move, while Novalis still reign rather clearly as Germany’s most boring symphonic rock group. If I’m forgetting someone else, it’s probably my, ahem, brain’s self defense mechanism. Somehow, it’s all still somewhat of interesting listen, but not really much of a keeper.

Novalis - Brandung

(Art) I’ve heard this, it’s boring
(Bob) But look at that COVER!
(Art) I know, I listened to it 15 times before just coming out and admitting it’s … boring
(Bob) That shit would look great on the wall. I could put it next to my Roger Dean poster.
(Art) You could leave the LP in the jacket too.
(Bob) But I heard it quoted as ”Incredible symphonic rock in the vein of Yes.”
(Art) I think he meant it sarcastically, like “Incredible, symphonic rock in the vein of Yes.”