Leafblade: The Kiss of Spirit and Flesh (KScope/Southbound)

Here are just a few reasons why many people quite rightly can't take the new era of prog-rock seriously: Two nouns ("leaf"+"blade") don't make a right and couplets like these are just ridiculously pretentious  and freighted with referential poetry: "A child of the prophets born 'neath the wandering star, honoured with gold and light from the wise men afar".

(Yes, that's from the opening track Bethlehem which also mentions "Orphean eyes").

Then there is the faux-archaic language ("a time it was beneath the loving moon"), candleflame flickering in the wind, the acoustic to crunching electric guitar (for drama, you understand), the sheer earnestness of it all (it's boring Radiohead-cum-boring Yes), a singer who urgently informs you he has danced with the streams, listened to mountains and something about the depths of the dream . . . something about infinity and knights and the songs of the womb . . .

Oh dear.

Such a lot of sententious and dated nonsense, a lot of it in ABAB rhyme scheme.

For the record Leafblade are Sean Jude ("poet, musician, actor, and poet", I quote) and Daniel Cavanagh of Anathema (who should have known better).

Even that Moody Blues' EGBDF album sounded better.  

And it were crap, mate.