Raindance
Artist: Gryphon
Label: Talking Elephant
Time: 9 Tracks / 42 minutes

Raindance finds Gryphon at an interesting point in rock. Fresh from the well-received fans’ favourite Red Queen to Gryphon Three, expectations would have been high. The band had no problem with talent, creativity and imagination, but there were stirrings in the musical undergrowth. Albums like Yes’s Tales from Topographic Oceans were starting to create a backlash against overblown epics, so as their last album consisted of just four tracks, with the shortest over eight minutes long, they had to be careful.

Up to this point, music had progressed in a linear pattern. Primeval Bill Haley rock and roll gave way to the thoughtful writing of The Beatles, whose songs of teenage love developed into the soundtrack to psychedelia. Bands with roots in blues-rock took that later style and developed the muscular stuff into heavy metal, while classically trained players moved that further on to progressive rock – something quite unrecognisable from its 1950s roots. But a fretboard is only so long and an ascending solo can only go so far. Rock that laughed at boundaries was breaking one more – and investigating its own behind. Things would turn back.

Maybe Gryphon noticed the change in trends and foresaw the reaction against the music that defined them. Here they hedged their bets. Despite a sixteen-minute long closing track, everything else is closed by five and a half minutes, with a more self-deprecating and humorous side showing in some of these shorter pieces. So this could be the definitive British mid-‘70s prog album, as it spans both the noodling and punchier eras, but does so while taking its instrumental interplay further.

While this leap has probably split the fans, some of whom see this as the start of a decline (or as a superb final track with filler before it) I believe it shows how they could reign in the excesses of the period and cram the strengths of prog into concise, honed gems. The addictive, funky instrumentals “Down the Dog” and “Wallbanger,” which opened each original side, are both driven by the band’s powerful sense of melody and helped on by clavinet, while the Camel-like title track is redolent with the feel of watching heavy, splattering rain.

If the album overall points forward to a future where five or six minutes is the normal limit for a track,  “Mother Nature’s Son” harks back to their time playing Beatles songs on medieval instruments. It may be the most conventional piece here, but the Lennon-McCartney tune lacks the brightness of their own melodies.

Their humour comes out in “Le Cambrioleur est dans le Mouchoir,” which, if I remember my French, translates as ‘The burglar is in the handkerchief.’ Though sounding very different, “Fontinental Version” has the same wacky approach and strange vocals. It also includes a more conventional synth solo over a riff.

In 1973 the band members consistently claimed Yes as an influence. If “Cambrioleur” is similar to Steve Howe’s “The Clap,” but with more adornment, guitar passages in the epic “Ein Klein Heldenleben” strongly echo Howe’s electric work. Keyboard player Richard Harvey (who went on to play with John Williams, Sir Paul McCartney and Elvis Costello) is the most obvious contributor to this disc and his keyboards also show the influence of supporting Yes on their 1974 tour, from the opening Wakeman-like run to lines and tones throughout the monster instrumental track.

The Focus- and Caravan-like Raindance may have dropped a lot of Gryphon’s medieval elements, but it still retained the band’s vivid sound, as well as a concise account of their melodic craft.

Derek Walker

Gryphon - Red Queen to Gryphon Three (last updated 2/27/11)

Often considered this krumhorn-wielding band’s finest moment.