 | III (1974)Genres: rock, hard rock, blues-rock |
review by thomas
Jane has released quite a few albums and reportedly they have been in many different styles. This points to the fact that you should maybe get some information before buying one of their albums. Something which I didn’t do when I bought “III” at pure chance and apparently got the wrong album (see: Jane – “Between Heaven and Hell”). The album starts off majestically though, with the ten minute space rock song “Comin’ Again” and if they should have stayed to space rock maybe this could have been a different affair – but they didn’t. The voice of the singer/bassist strikes you as perfect for the space rock of “Comin’ Again” and then on the rest of the album it’s just embarrassing. The rest of the album consists of blues and boogie based rock of the worst kind played on guitar, bass and drums.
Only for lovers of the likes of Fire, Status Quo, Tempest and maybe even Wind.
 | Between Heaven and Hell (1977)Genres: progressive rock, space rock, hard rock |
review by thomas
It was a completely different Jane that did this one from that Jane who made “III”. Klaus Hess (guitars, moog, vocals) and Peter Panda…I mean Panka (drums, percussion, vocals) were survivors from the early days and together with Martin Hesse (bass, vocals) and Manfred Wieczorke (keyboards, vocals) they made this power and passion album. I don’t know which one of them that is the lead singer, but in any case he’s an improvement over what we had to tolerate on “III”. The music has also gone under drastic changes compared to “III”.
The sidelong title track combines monotonous and atmospheric floating parts with hard rock-ish ones; in my opinion the drums are a little lame, they could have more bite, but they are in no way bad. The song gives you images and impressions of melancholy, doom and hopelessness. “Twilight” is a hard rocker with a long and good instrumental middle-section complete with biting guitar and mesmerizing bass. The song ends in a surprising way with authentic church organ and harp playing; very beautiful indeed. Then we have the calmer “Voice In the Wind” with synthesizer and moog up front and with rather hollow drum playing, still a very atmospheric track of fragile beauty. The finishing “Your Circle” is the only failure on this album, sounding like an outtake from the “III” sessions, in other words a boogie based rocker with no appeal whatsoever. I must also mention the good cover – I don’t mean the front but the whole cover which on LP where of the fold-out type and these “four sides” gives us a very fine cover.
A fine album of very atmospheric progressive rock together with hard rock and heavy progressive moments.
