The seventh album from this British band.
The band was a quintet with a lineup of guitars, bass, drums, programming, mellotron, mini moog, electronic drums, synths, keyboards and vocals.
Numerous other musicians added their woodwinds and vocals to this album.
It is fair to say that Galahad's output so far has been a very mixed bag. Not at least genre wise. They have gone acoustic and they have gone electronica. Hence I am not even bothered reviewing their sixth album, the electronica album De-Constructing Ghosts.
Galahad is a neo-prog band though. But not often enough, so far.
Year Zero sees the band give us a sprinkling of neo-prog, electronica and symphonic prog. There are even some jazz here.
I am not really sure what the band was doing or trying to achieving. Being regarded as a run of the mill neo-prog band was probably what they were trying to avoid and they worked hard to escape that label.
Too hard in my opinion.
At best, this album is really good. Then we get some nodding off electronica stuff which simply does not work at all.
The result is a mixed bag and an album who fall somewhere between decent and good. It is frustrating album for neo-prog fans like myself.
2.5 points
Galahad put out some great neoprog culminating with 1998s stellar Following Ghosts. Because of my great appreciation for Following Ghosts I was thrilled when Year Zero was issued...it was however a major disappointment as has been everything since. They turned to a much heavier and frankly more modern sound. Don't get me wrong, I like hard rock and some metal as much as the next guy but the recent Galahad albums have been major letdowns. I miss the old sound.
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