Progressive Rock Focus

To date, one person has read my review of Jadis - No Fear of Looking Down, so you can hardly accuse me of chasing numbers in my follow-up review of Somersault, their album from 2010. But so impressed I was by No Fear, I've been looking further into their catalogue. Opening track Live This Lie reminds me of 'IT Bites' - remember them? Funnily enough they are still going and I will be doing a review soon. There's a kind of 80s pop sensibility to Jadis which I find very engaging. The vocals are rhythmically and melodically interesting, the musical arrangement interesting, the harmony is full of interesting tweaks and turns. There's clearly a very creative musical intelligence. This song is a very long way away from a simple verse/chorus structure. And what a great ending! Second track Batstein (Batstein?) follows on stylistically. There's a kind of cheerful Englishness about Jadis which reminds me of Camel. And Steve Hackett in his most Narnia-esque mood. Great syn...

Today we're diving into the world of Jadis, who is of course the wicked witch of the Narnia books. Jadis have been around since the 1980s and were part of the neo-prog scene back then. I'm going to start with their 2016 album No Fear of Looking Down  for the very good reason that it come up first on Amazon. So, are they always winter but never Christmas, or are they turkish delight? Their songs generally seem to be in the 5 to 7 minute category. Experience leads me to expect extended rock songs rather than suddenly changing prog epics. The first song, Listen to me , bears this out. We're in Steve Hackett territory, I think - strong vocals, good melodies. Beautiful guitar sounds. I'm not so keen on the use of the Korg synth preset throughout the song but that's not going to bother you if you're not a total synth nerd like I am. Later on the same riff emerges again on guitar, and it works well. This is a strong opener, though it's firmly in neo-prog territory ...