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Citizen Cain - Serpents In Camouflage

Artist:	Citizen Cain
Title:	Serpents In Camouflage
Label:	Cyclops CYCL 064
Length(s):	71 minutes
Year(s) of release:	1992/98
Month of review:	04/1998

Line up

Cyrus - vocals
Stewart Bell - keyboards
Frank Kennedy - guitars
David Elam - bass
Chris Colvin - drums

Tracks

1)	Stab In The Back	6.49
2)	Liquid Kings	11.25
3)	Harmless Criminal	10.29
4)	The Gathering	11.05
5)	Dance Of The Unicorn	6.27
6)	Serpents In Camouflage	13.23
7)	Nightlights - As The Wheel Turns	4.06
8)	Stab In The Back (live Demo)	7.06

Summary

The last of SI Music Citizen Cain albums has now appeared with the last two track being bonus tracks from the very first Citizen Cain demoes. This is the only album that was not yet in my collection and I had in fact never heard it before. Since it contains bonus tracks I now also have more chance of finding the SI version. Nice.

The music

opens with Rothery-style fluent guitarwork and dark spacey keyboards in the back. The guitar playing is not the only thing in the style of Marillion, since a large part of the intro reminds me of them. But after a minute or so the Gabrielesque vocals of Cyrus start and the style of the music is turned back a decade or so. I'm not that fond of the vocals of Cyrus (but I do like those of Gabriel, how's that?), but the melodies are fine on this track and there's plenty of variation, but fortunately not as much as on the later Citizen Cain release. Liquid Kings is also quite a good track, with a nice build-up and good melodies, but the keyboard run sounds very familiar (Marillion). In the middle we get a break into a flute part after which the singing picks up again. After these good tracks, Harmless Criminal is not so interesting with less appealing melodies. Notable are a rather optimistic break just after the middle followed by a keyboard solo a la Kelly. The Gathering opens a bit like Incommunicado, but never erupts. There are also some echoes of White Feather here and some pointers to Collins era Genesis. Dance Of The Unicorn is an off-beat track, with a repetitive guitar riff and lush keyboards. The flute part sounds a bit out of place here. Later, we get a transition to a catchy rocking part after which the guitar can solo away. The song ends with a serene part on flute. The closer of the album is the title track, which with over 13 minutes is also the longest track of the album. The beginning contains much up-tempo keyboards and some duels with the guitar, while the second part of the song is more dramatic and plaintive. At the end, the rock is stronger again and the songs ends in crescendo.

For completeness sake Nightlights, the only track from the first demo not on the original album is added as well as a live version of Stab In The Back. Nightlights is a rather short up-tempo rocking track and not very impressive. Quite poppy. The sound quality on the live track is quite bad and as always the beginning reminds me of the moody intermezzo of The Spider Wanders Aimlessly...

The artwork is as friendly as the lyrics: not.

Conclusion

Owing quite a lot to Genesis (Lamb-era), but also much to early Marillion, a more contemporary influence, the music on this album is rather dark and sinister and has plenty, but too much, variation. The vocals of Cyrus are tiring and hold between Garbriel and Barrett. Like the bio said, the music is uncompromising progressive with odd signatures, and arguably compositionally and melodically their finest hour. Some might call this music shameless, and in fact some passages have a very direct link wth Marillion and Genesis, but still if you'd want to own one of their albums, I think this should the one.