BRAND X: MASQUES (1978)
1) The Poke; 2) Masques; 3)
Black Moon; 4) Deadly Nightshade; 5) Earth Dance; 6) Access To Data; 7) The
Ghost Of Mayfield Lodge.
Telling «bad fusion» from «good fusion» is a
worthless, ungrateful task if you are not a fusion musician yourself. But there
is no getting away from gut feelings, either, and mine tell me that somehow, in
some way Brand X «lost it» with the loss of Phil Collins, yes indeed. Perhaps
this is not really related, but it is
a fact, or, rather, two facts, that (a) Masques
is the first album not to feature Phil at all, and (b) the first Brand X album
about which I genuinely do not feel at all thrilled. Could these facts be
related? We'd need to waste a lifetime to find out.
Anyway, this here is a very straightahead, no
bull, no deviation, highly formulaic fusion album. No Moroccan influences,
vocals, or anything that would distract us from jazzy grooving. Only the first
track, ʽThe Pokeʼ, is based on a steady rock beat, but what they do with it is
not very interesting — it sounds a bit like Rush in places: gruff hard rock
molded into a complex, «progressive» form that has more to do with dry musical
geometry than spiritual excitement (not that Rush always sound unexciting or
anything, but they do have a lot of
filler passages like this one). Once ʽThe Pokeʼ is over, though, it's all about
Percy Jones and his trademark «bass zoops» for the rest of the album. Even if
he only wrote or co-wrote two tracks here, this album sounds like it belongs to
the bass player almost exclusively.
The bad news is that this time, there are no
particularly intriguing or moving themes. You'd think, for instance, that an
11-minute long track named ʽDeadly Nightshadeʼ should have a properly deadly
sound, deserving of its name — instead, it just moves from slow to fast and
back to slow sections without even trying to look like it were going somewhere.
A lot of stuff is happening, but essentially it is just a meandering jam.
Likewise, ʽThe Ghost Of Mayfield Lodgeʼ has a cool title, too, and is
apparently based upon ghost stories about a real lodge in which Percy Jones
used to dwell for a while, but apart from a minute-long rhythmless section that
could be interpreted as «ghostly interplay» between keyboards, bass, and
percussion, there is nothing I would regard as all that «ghostly» about the
track — just another groove. In fact, you could transplant parts of
ʽNightshadeʼ into ʽMayfield Lodgeʼ and vice versa and no one would probably
take notice.
The only more or less memorable theme is
discoverable in ʽEarth Danceʼ, but that one, too, once they move away from the
theme into soloing, is interchangeable with ʽNightshadeʼ. And even the theme is
not that awesome — a rather basic salsa variation. Apparently, there's no place
like Cuba if you want to envision something as grandly universalist as an
«Earth Dance». Kind of a lightweight atmosphere, I'd say, for such an
ambitious venture.
All said, I'm almost tempted to put the thumbs
down for this, but two things stop me from being so mean — first, there'd be
much worse stuff on the way, and second, well, boring or not, it is clear that
they were still working their asses off on these grooves. If I completely clear
my mind from that «context» thing, Masques
still provides almost fifty minutes of exemplary playing — on autopilot,
perhaps, but not without the collective guardian angel from the Fusion
Department guiding minds, hands, and plugs. As background music, this is still
first-rate; I'm just disappointed that the tunes are so completely
association-free this time around. Or maybe we should read the title more
literally, and agree that the band is indeed playing with their «masques» on,
and then spend the next ten years of our life trying to peek behind them.
Masques is not my favorite Brand X album either but I think it still delivers. The band is tight and the arrangements move effortlessly for one to the other. Pert has more of an influence and perhaps that is what turned you off. Nonetheless to each their own.
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