Bard is over 60 minutes long and features 11 songs, ranging from the (very) short instrumental's Malfosse, Harold Rex Interfectus Est and How The Earth From This Place Has Power Over Fire to the epics Broken English and For Winter. This album sees the Dorset boys broadening their sound without diluting their heritage. Musically, they're still very much out on their own, with their own brand of very English Melodic Prog Folky Rock. Mellow guitars breathe all over the songs in a relaxing outhilation that is immeasurably pleasurable.

Jo Michaels

The album kicks off with the melodic The Last English King before slipping into Bards first epic Broken English, which has Jo Michaels first appearance on vocals. Martin Reads voice has come on in leaps and bounds from that first demo tape. This is 14 minutes of heaven. This Is Where We Came In comes in after that, picking up the groove once more, before mellowing it out with Harold Rex... flowing into Blacksmithing, which is like Jadis chilling out. Malfosse then links this with Love Is Her Thing. Before you know it, the music has flown beautifully through How The Earth... and A Short Visit To Earth and you're slap bang in the middle of the other epic For Winter. Possibly the heaviest song on the album (and it's not heavy at all!) this show patches of Genesis, Deep Purple, and the rest as another 17 minutes of your life enjoyably passes by. A Long Finish is just that, a final finale lasting a full 8 minutes, long by anyone elses standards.

We all think that you should buy this CD, and at least Goodbye To The Age Of Steam of their back catalogue (if not the rest as well!). This could be the bands last recording, due to lack of an impact in the world prog market, the guys feel that they just cant sustain themselves on their meagre earnings. Don't let a good band down! Buy the CD (for only a tenner) from www.bigbigtrain.com