review by thomas

Debut album with eight songs of rather hard progressive with crunchy and fierce guitars and with medieval and Irish influences imbedded in the overall sound. Fruupp stood out a little from their UK counterparts, the band hailing from Ireland a fact that is reflected in their sound. With song titles like “Graveyard Epistle”, “Olde Tyme Future” and “Lord of the Incubus” their lyrics (and music) makes you think of times long forgotten.

The six main songs on the album – the intro and epilogue, both entitled “Future Legends”, are short fitting intros and outros – have many strong passages of instrumental delight with that crunchy guitar, good keyboards, bass and drums. With equally strong vocalized parts Fruupp made a smashing debut. Over this they throw in some superb oboe playing that adds an air of medieval atmosphere.

The guitar has more bite and a crunchiness that for some reason were to be avoided on their later releases. A bit of a shame actually, since this was one of the things that made their debut so good. S o anyone thinking of venture into Fruupp land may want to track down “Future Legends” first. This said it’s not like their other albums are bad but I prefer this one for the crunchy guitars but also for the strong material that have no fillers.