Fantasy United Kingdom
"Fantasy’s second effort, Beyond the Beyond, was registered in 1974 but didn’t see the light at the time and was only released in the early 90s. This is really unfortunate as this album is such a decisive improvement over their debut album "Paint a Picture" that could have represented a real turning point for the band.
Most of the songs included in Beyond the Beyond are of very high quality, and really show Fantasy at their best: solid rhythm section, beautiful vocal melodies and excellent keyboards and guitar arrangements, with David Metcalfe’s mellotron and Hammond shining all through and Peter James’ guitar being much more convincing than on the debut album. Beyond the Beyond also scores higher in originality and ‘progressiveness’ than its predecessor.
The highlight of the album is the 9+mins Alanderie , a beautiful blend of outstanding organ and mellotron work, great vocals parts (at times dark and aggressive, at times more melodic), excellent rhythm section with some great electric guitar work (almost pre-metal in the second half of the song), all embellished by eastern and psychedelic influences.
Also worth of mention are the title track Beyond the Beyond (a tasteful rocker with some excellent keyboards work), the acoustic Reality (beautiful melodic song dominated by 12 strings acoustic guitar and voice), Afterthought (Peter James’ guitar shines here, with a convincing guitar solo at about 3mins, and also great Hammond arrangements) and the Wyattian Church Clock . The other songs are less original and turn out to be somewhat less convincing, although still enjoyable (especially Winter Rose ).
Overall, a really good album with great prog songs. Not to be missed."
"Fantasy’s Paint a Picture is an album you will enjoy at first listening. 45mins of very song-oriented melodic prog rock with decent keyboard arrangements (mostly hammond), decent guitar work, good texture and very good vocals. The main problem with this album is that it won’t grow on you beyond that, no matter how many times you’ll listen to it. Partly this is because of Fantasy’s plain songwriting which if on the one hand creates very listenable songs, on the other hand it takes away depth from their music. Partly, this is because of the general lack of originality in Fantasy’s music especially considering this is a 1973 album (CRESSIDA sounding like the most obvious influence to me).
Nevertheless, this is still a good album, and I very much enjoy listening to songs such as Paint a picture (melancholically driven by nice vocal harmonies over a texture of acoustic guitar and Hammond), Circus (beautifully played all through, with well crafted dynamics, a decent guitar solo about 2mins into the song and great vocals), Politely Insane (Fantasy almost turning hard prog with this little uptempo gem), or The Widow (short sad song with acoustic guitar, cello and piano forming a nice background for the vocals harmonies). The second half of the album is much more ordinary and forgettable than the first half, and at parts it gets quite boring (e.g., Thank Christ , Gnome Song ).
Overall this is a very decent effort which has its good moments and is definitely worth a listen."
