Beggar's Opera* - Act One

We're at the heart of early seventies prog here and this fulfills all your expectations, the best and the worst. Mock-classical music on the ominously titled ''Passacaglia'' (no, it's not a track by Benjamin Britten in case you wondered) illustrates convincingly everything that can go awry. Pretentious doodling executed with great technical skill plus especially irritating organ pyrotechnics. Baroque influences are everywhere and they are mostly displayed with the intention to impress. But when the organ restrains itself to accompaniment, the music at times rises to the occasion and gets genuinely moving. Almost all of ''Memory'' serves like an oasis with arching melodies in the classical desert and the profuse quoting of ''Light cavalry'' contains just enough irony to make it worthwhile. A checquered effort. The band took their name from the opera by John Gay from 1728.