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31 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Missing Link In British Prog, July 16, 2000
This band represents a vital piece of the wonderfully incestuous history of English progressive rock. As any fan knows, members of the UK prog scene tended to move freely from one band to another, creating all sorts of interesting cross-pollinations to the point that the genre's evolution looks something like a geneaology chart.Just to mention two examples: John Wetton, formerly of King Crimson et.al., stopped by here before going on to join the prog-veteran supergroup Asia, while Bill Bruford brought credentials of Yes, King Crimson and others to this outing. He also has had many other stops since. This is an excellent album that does not deserve its relative lack of attention (both today and when it was released). It takes progressive rock in a new, jazz fusion-oriented direction that can be seen to have led to Brand X, among others. As a teenager, I purchased UK in the 70s on vinyl. It really took me two decades to develop a full appreciation for its complexities, to the point that it now ranks as one of my great progressive albums of all time. If you have any affinity for this type of music (or great music in general), you won't regret adding this album to your collection.
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17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
When Talent Counted For Something, October 4, 2004
Here I am again, going against type. Normally, there's two types of bands I avoid like the plague:
A) Supergroups
B) Bands that are named after geographical locations
My experience has been typically that both types of musical endeavors are usually ridden with crass commercial machinations, merciless hype, over-inflated egos and cliched tripe that adds up to far less than the sum of it's collective experiences and talents.
Then every once in a great while, there comes along a collective of musicians of considerable talent and brilliance that completely goes against the norm and produces a brilliant set of music. UK was one such wonderful anomaly!!
For a wonderful moment in time, this foursome produced some of the most adventurous, state-of-the-art (for the time period) symphonic progressive rock that you were ever likely to hear. While certainly very technically gifted, UK did not let flashy grandstanding obscure great songcraft. Each piece has incredibly strong melody and certainly more than enough instrumental fireworks to satisfy the most rabid prog fan.
The standouts for me are the 3 part "In The Dead of Night" epic that opens the album, the tear-inducing "30 Years" (what I would call a "Kleenex Classic") and probably my absolute top fave "Alaska/Time To Kill". The "Alaska" portion works so well as Eddie Jobson conjures up vast pictures of a windswept, desolate, snow-covered landscape on his synths, giving way to a firey interchange between all four musicians leading into the harrowing survival tale of "Time To Kill". This is easily John Wetton's most wrenching vocal performance on the album.
Another highlight is Allan Holdsworth's interjections with extruded, otherworldly guitar parts that sound totally impossible! I personally remember hearing this album when it was first released and scratching my head saying "HOW THE DEVIL DOES HE DO THAT??". Throughout the whole album, he unleashes extruded silvery chords, death-defying legato melody lines and things that sound, like I said, totally impossible on guitar. Bill Bruford and John Wetton carry over the telepathic brilliance they cultivated as the King Crimson rhythm section quite beautifully here. Never a dull moment.
"Nevermore" is a great feature for Allan, ranging from beautiful and thoughtful acoustic flourishes at the start to haunting "guitar orchestra" passages in the opening verses and firey trade-offs with Eddie Jobson midway through. Best of all, the whole song develops so beautifully like a symphonic piece, with Eddie Jobson's colorful textural shifts and swaths holding your rapt attention.
"Mental Medication" is the one cut that didn't quite fly for me. It starts off beautifully enough, with Allan unleashing some silvery, ghostly chord melody and a heartfelt John Wetton vocal introduces the song's theme. However, the whole piece takes on a rather stilted "pieced together" feel, with a lot of odd-meters and intricate passages for their own sake that don't make complete sense, in stark contrast to the beautifully written musical sentences throughout the rest of the album.
That quibble aside, this writer is of the opinion that UK's debut album is an essential part of your library, a display of unabashed brilliance, and sadly, a sort of swan-song, one last moment of brilliance before the forces of crass commercialism took their toll and told those of great talent they were no longer wanted around. Play it loudly, play it proudly!! Let the naysayers be served notice that real talent still counts for something!!!
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Unfortunately Nevermore, July 26, 2006
If you're a progressive rock fan, this disc is a treasure. Almost thirty years after it's initial release, this album still sounds fresh and leaves a stunning impact. When I first heard this I was listening to a lot of heavy guitar oriented music and the ethereal layered keyboards of Eddie Jobson made me form the initial opinion that this was mellow. After hundreds of repeated spins this has become one of my favorite discs, and even though there are many quiet passages it's far from mellow. It just takes time to appreciate the depth of this music. Clocking in a little over 46 minutes, this disc is full of smooth as glass segues and matchless music with all band members contributing and/or collaborating in the songwriting duties.
Eddie Jobson's keyboard playing and occasional electric violin work is spot on. John Wetton has a haunting vocal tone that is perfectly suited for this type of music and his bass playing is awesome. Bill Bruford, the master percussion player, pulls off many syncopated, impossible, drumming maneuvers with ease. Allan Holdsworth is one of the most original guitar players ever and his playing throughout this disc is amazing. It's a shame that this lineup of U.K. lasted less than a year, but they created, in my opinion, one of the best prog-rock discs ever.
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