Artist/ Band: First Aid
Title: Stumbling Boldly Foward
Label: First Aid Records
Year of Release: 1991
Offical Artist/ Band Link

The Review:

First Aid's musicianship is very good throughout their debut disc and one of Canada's lesser known bands, they hail from Vancouver BC. They formed in the early 80's with several different line-ups and by time this recording was done they were a trio (keyboards, guitar, drums). Their sound is strongly rooted in hard prog rock, almost prog-metal but not quite, vein with a small dose of neo ala the keyboard sounds as shown on all but a few tracks.

Their first full release, "Stumbling" is mostly Instrumental based with songs ranging from under three minutes to abit over 6 minutes, with a majority of them under 5 minute mark. The shortest track on the disc, is a beautiful acoustic guitar based ballad, which was sung by First Aid leader Scott Jacks, who played acoustic guitar on it as well.

They pay tribute to ELP in "Hockey Night in Tarkus" but to me parts of it falls abit short, with slower organ playing and the even slower interplay between the instruments. Although I felt that they had potential to be a great band, there was just something lacking in the production, which didn't allow them to achieve a bigger and better things.

Reviewed By Ron Fuchs On October 6th, 2001

Tracks:

1. Fallen Czar [4:24]
2. Is Bigger Better? [4:45]
3. Everywhere I Learn [2:40]
4. The Church of Cash [5:48]
5. Lost Word [4:09]
6. Hockey Night in Tarkus [4:27]
7. Instrumental Departure [6:04]
8. Waiting [4:10]
9. 15/16 [5:11]

Reviewed Discography

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