The 1981 Listening Post - Kayak - Merlin

Reviewed by Chris Roberts Released: 1981 Kayak Merlin Genre: Prog Rating: 3.99 out of 5 Highlights: Merlin The King's Enchanter Niniane (Lady Of The Lake) Now That We’ve Come This Far Love's Aglow I’ve been poking at prog music during the pandemic, but it can be a hard genre to pin down. In my youth, I thought prog meant fancy-pants records like Yes’ Close to The Edge or Genesis’ The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway—two albums I couldn’t quite digest. But Tool, Supertramp and Tangerine Dream all have LPs on Rolling Stone’s 2015 “50 Greatest Prog Rock Albums of All Time” list, and each of those LPs are as great as they are different from each other. Prog includes metal, krautrock, psych, electronica, Italian and Japanese offshoots, plus Pink Floyd, Rush and even ELO, but just about any album containing a track longer than five minutes might be considered at least “prog” adjacent. Kayak did not make the Top 50 for Rolling Stone, but their 1981 LP Merlin does contain three songs over five minutes. And Kayak feel solidly identifiable as a prog band, with high octave vocals, pastoral moments, fantasy themes and magical solos for Maiar wizards and first year Hufflepuffs alike. Plus, their palindromic band name makes for a badass logo. Side A of Merlin is five connected songs about the Arthurian sorcerer. It opens with one of my highlights, the seven-minute title track, which has all the swirling winds and tinkling keys, layered falsettos, all the plaintive storytelling you could ever need for your next D&D campaign. Nothing is advanced level, thanks to Kayak’s main composer, Ton Scherpenzeel, who makes good use of pop/classic rock hooks, and keeps the noodling to a minimum. The flute in “King’s Enchanter” gets you charged up for some necromancy, while the ballad “Niniane (Lady of The Lake)” brings the heartbreak. If any of this sounds intriguing, I recommend trying Side A. But be warned, the drums don’t shake the castle walls. If you’re waiting for the Eastern glow, Merlin can also sound like a schmaltzy kids animated musical, particularly if you start to think about Phil Collins career too much. (In 2003, Kayak rerecorded these five songs and embellished with nine new ones, to create the rock opera album Merlin: Bard of The Unseen). Side B of Merlin is a jarringly different thing: five thematically-unrelated-to-magic pop songs. The first of these is “Seagull,” a single also included on Phantom of the Night (Very Best of Kayak). I found it less birdsong and more birdshit, but who can blame Kayak for paddling alongside the prog rock yacht for a trip down the river Styx? The peppier “Boogie Heart” shuffles like an ELO outtake while “Can’t Afford To Lose” is practically ABBA-esque disco, but lead vocalist Edward Reekers is the wrong fit for this groovy material. But he’s just fine for the slower stuff, like “Now That We’ve Come This Far,” a lost hobbit prom dance epic, and “Love Aglow” is a wistful soft tinkle to close out the set—a “Dust In The Wind” moment. I liked enough of this poppier material to check out some of their other singles, like “Ruthless Queen” and “Want You To Be Mine,” but it ended pretty quickly. Overall, hard to rate this mess as a 4, but there was magic in the air.