- Merlin
- Tintagel
- The Sword In The Stone
- The King's Enchanter
- Niniane (Lady Of The Lake)
- Seagull
- Boogie Heart
- Now That We've Come This Far
- Can't Afford To Lose
- Love's Aglow
The Once and Future Sound
With Merlin (1981), Kayak wove their most ambitious spell - an album that stands at the threshold between fantasy and reflection, grandeur and grace. In the midst of shifting musical tides, when prog rock’s star was dimming, the Dutch band turned inward and upward, drawing from legend not to escape the world, but to understand it anew. What emerged was less a rock opera than a modern myth - one that found its heart not in spectacle, but in sincerity.
The Arthurian tale that anchors the record becomes, in Kayak’s hands, a metaphor for the twilight of ideals. Here, the mystic’s art and the musician’s craft intertwine. The band conjures atmosphere rather than excess, summoning chivalric echoes through crystalline melodies and lush symphonic textures. There is majesty, yes, but it’s tempered by melancholy - the sense that magic, once unleashed, always carries the shadow of its end.
Ton Scherpenzeel’s compositions balance precision and passion, his keyboard landscapes glowing with both wonder and restraint. Edward Reekers’ voice - clear, emotive, human - gives myth its mortal pulse. Even when the arrangements soar, there’s a humility beneath the shimmer, a recognition that every legend is, at its core, a story about loss.
Merlin marks Kayak’s evolution from a band of technical brilliance to one of narrative and emotional depth. It bridges eras - the fading candlelight of the progressive 1970s and the coming sheen of the 1980s - without ever betraying its spirit. The album’s second half, with its introspective modernity, feels like the spell’s aftermath: what remains when the sword has been sheathed and the king has sailed to Avalon.
In Merlin, Kayak proved that grandeur need not be loud and myth need not be distant. It’s a record about the enduring enchantment of creation itself - about belief in the transformative power of sound and story. Decades on, its magic still flickers, undiminished, reminding us that every age needs its wizards - and that some enchantments, once cast, never truly fade.
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My personal view:
This album is one of their best. All five tracks on the A-side are dedicated to the legend of Merlin and Arthur - but they are listed separately, and not as a suite. All five are brilliant songs (especially the prog anthem Merlin and the ballad like closer Niniane), and the sum is even greater than the parts. Compared with this masterpiece, the B-side shows a drop in quality, but is still on par with the songs of many of their previous albums (especially Seagull and Can't Afford To Lose). For a long time, this was for me the best album ever produced by a Dutch act - until Kayak re-adressed the Merlin legend in 2003.