Toward The Sun  (47:32)
	01	Voices						08:14
	02	Remembering						05:24
	03	Theme						05:26
	04	Toward The Sun						05:08
	05	Red Carpet For An Autumn						03:09
	06	Dawn Of Evening						10:03
	07	Shangri-La						10:08
Fluid Druid  (39:39)
	01	Razor Truth						05:40
	02	Painters Clouds						04:58
	03	FM 145						02:10
	04	Crusade						07:51
	05	Nothing But Morning						04:10
	06	Barnaby						03:12
	07	Kestrel						03:37
	08	Left To Mind						07:17
	09	The Fisherman's Friend						00:44

Neil Brewer, bass guitar;
Andrew McCrorie-Shand, keyboards;
Cedric Sharpley, drums, percussion;
Dane, guitars, vocals

Jon Fry:
A few years back, when I was on a major Yes kick, I ordered four discs that were described as "Yes-like" or "Yes-influenced": Realm's The Path, Blue Shift's Not the Future I Ordered and Druid's Toward the Sun and Fluid Druid (packaged together in one case). As it happens, only the Druid albums have endured the test of time for me. Like Starcastle, I wouldn't call Druid clones as much as followers of Yes; they took the basic sound of that band and managed to produce something worthy with it.
Toward the Sun, the first of Druid's two albums, is a mix of folky prog with ethereal lyrics. Much of the album reminds me of Yes' "Remembering - High the Memory," with a bit of Camel and Fruupp in there as well. The leader singer, known only as "Dane," has some of the softest, highest male vocals this side of Supertramp. All in all, this is almost stereotypical "symphonic rock." Both the drummer and the keyboardist are excellent musicians, which may explain why they're also the two who have had detectable musical careers since Druid: the former in Gary Numan's band and the latter, oddly enough, as the composer for the "Teletubbies" show.
I find this album quite memorable, despite being rather low-key and wistful. I'd recommend this one to anybody interested in delving deeper into the less popular British symphonic bands of the 70's. This remastered release comes not only with the second album, Fluid Druid (which is not quite as good overall), but also high-quality packaging, including lyrics and a history of the band. Thumbs up, overall!


Druid - "Toward the Sun" (1975)
The roots of Druid goes back to 1970 and a trio who called themselves Maggot. They added a keyboard player to their sound and finally became Druid. The band had excellent instrumental skills and all the right moves for a symphonic progressive rock band: swirling Mellotron and organ, sweeping, tasty analogue synths, thundering Rickenbacker-bass and some of the highest falsetto-vocals ever heard from a progressive rock band. Their music often sounded like a softer and more folk-influenced version of Yes. The only problem was their songwriting, which was not more than decent and OK. But their nice, very accomplished and atmospheric sound made up for some of it. The best tracks on their debut "Toward the Sun" includes "Voices", the beautiful "Red Carpet for an Autumn" and the title-track. The latter was next to "Shangri-La" the best examples of their combination of Yes and folk-influences. "Theme" is an instrumental number that includes some Tangerine Dream-sounding Mellotron in the mid-part. The two remaining tracks, "Remembering" and "Dawn of Evening" features both lots of great, delightful arrangements and playing but the compositions themselves are rather mediocre and never really catch fire. Quite nice stuff, although there are better obscure progressive rock albums from the mid-70's.


Druid - "Fluid Druid" (1976)
Their second and last album opens with the weakest track they ever recorded ("Razor Truth") but personally I think the songwriting on the rest of the album is a tad better and more varied than on their first. There's less Mellotron and falsetto-vocals in the arrangements this time, but they managed to keep the warmth and atmosphere in their sound. The best tracks are "Painter's Cloud", "Crusade" and "Nothing but Morning". Personally I think the melodies and instrumental parts in these tracks surpass anything on their debut. "Kestrel" is one of the most complex tracks they recorded, even if it's less than 4 minutes long. "Left to Find" reminds me a lot of Fruupp, both in the arrangement and build-up. "Barnaby" is a quite funny surprise with its ska/funk-influences and differs completely from everything else they did. Too bad that they didn't record any more after "Fluid Druid" as it shows maturing songwriting from the band, and a third album would probably been even better if everything had gone the right way.