#7 - Top of 2011

Comedy of Errors - Disobey (ACH Media)

Comedy of Errors hail from Glasgow and have been around since 1984 and remarkably this is their debut album! OK, to put some things into perspective, the band was initally formed in the 1980s but disbanded after some years and an EP release. In 2011, the band was re-imagined and returned with their first ever album. This release  combines new ideas with old material that never saw the light  back in the day. The result is an excellent album of neo-prog infused with newer ideas, marking this album (and its two successors) as some of the more interesting "hidden gems" of the progressive rock scene in the current decade. The album opens with the title track, a grandiose opener which fuses power chords with a massive synth sound.  'Jekyll' is an upbeat one, built around the synth sound of Jim Johnston and acoustic passages uniting with choral vocals. 'Prelude, riff and fugue' is a three-parter  instrumental, with obvious ELP influences. 'Carousel' is a self-reflective song describing the ageing process as seen through the eyes of an old man, with symphonic prog elements uniting with neo-prog to offer the biggest epic of the album. 'American rodeo' is a more straight rock tune and a semi-tribute to Deep Purple. 'Could have been yesterday', is another fine prog rock song which brings the tempo down again. 'Joke' is a fine prog rock ballad which nicely acts as a lead to the album's epic four parter  'The student prince', which has been in development since the 1980s and is a grandiose and at the same time exhilarating way of bringing this album to a close. Brilliant comeback and resurrection from a band that despite its age sounds as fresh as ever.

94/100


Below is the music video for "Jekyll"