Ben

"Ben" 1971





















Ben's self-titled debut has the dubious honour of being widely rated as one of the weakest albums released on the Vertigo-swirl label. Although I can think of even more obvious candidates for that claim (especially Daddy Longlegs' utterly dreadful "Oakdown Farm" comes to mind), Ben's album had indeed serious flaws. But things sounds actually quite promising at first listen. Here are lengthy multi-part suites, excellent musicianship and an overall very appealing early 70's, very jazzy progressive rock sound with lots of flute, sax, keyboards and guitar. But closer inspection of the material on the album reveals that you've been cheated. All of the four tracks are made up of tiresome extended jams and solos that are built around themes and melodies that are all too simple and barely half-written at best. The closer "Gismo" demonstrates this problem best, and goes on for nearly 12 minutes without ever coming close to a good or memorable idea. "Gibbon" is probably the best track on the album, but even this one is also hampered by the same problems as the rest, although to a less extent. The opener "The Influence" is pointlessly divided into seven movements that all sounds the same, and "Christmas Execution" is made up of repetitive, unimaginative and uninspired riffs that goes nowhere. Too bad such good musicians with a sound like this would waste it all on such weak material as this album offers. ~vintageprog.com