Gabriel Sabadi - Beauty On The Beach

Hear The Track Here

As always, Gabriel Sabadi isn't one to ever work alone, this time he's roped in Gary Powers and - just for good measure - my old mate Ked Dieter who obligingly supplies the lead licks on this track. Gabe crows that this whole track came together in the space of a day and don't the rest of us just hate it when that happens. Unless you have been living in a parallel universe you will have read one or the other of my reviews of this US musician (and all his friends of course) and know that I actually very much like his brand of rock - so long as he sticks to this side of the prog rock thingie.

I'm probably REALLY going to get into trouble for this, but I think somewhere along the line I have compared Gabe's eventual sound with Yes (maybe it was with the GSM collaboration) and I find myself having to do it again. God, this sounds like early Yes, there I've said it. Now as much as I rail against the whole prog rock thing what really soured me on the whole thing were the American prog rock bands because I have no problem in admitting that I was as smitten by the early works of Yes, King Crimson, Jethro Tull et al (say around 1970-72). By the time I toured with Kansas and Styx in 1976 it was overblown, pretentious to an alarming degree and really, really, really dull and lifeless. Can't say the same about any of Gabriel's tracks and God only knows that I want to find fault.

See, that the problem with this reviewing malarky, especially when you are dealing with experienced and professional musicians (Gabe would probably disagree with that comment but I meant every word) is that whatever the genre, it will be immensely listenable. That is why I will always have time for tracks from this quarter - even though it is identifiably prog rock. It would seem there is prog rock and then there is prog rock, know what I mean? About the only negative thing I can say about it is that I thought the stunningly good vocals could have been much higher in the mix without losing any of the overall impact.

Prog rock, but not as we hate it Jim. Highly Recommended.