CD Review

Rating 91%

reviewed by Charlie O'

Actually, I laughed. Not out loud, mind. That would have been rude. Anyway, he said he has loads of old stuff floating around that he felt like knocking up into 'proper' songs. I was sceptical that he could pull it off, knowing him to be a lazy old bugger.

But I was wrong, so very wrong! And here it is. You may look at the 'guest' musician list and say "Fuck that, it's an IQ/Jadis/Wetton album really!" and be disappointed by the songs themselves. But you would be very foolish indeed. For they really are just 'guests' and as Marvin puts it "It was great to finally tell Ghandler how to play his bloody guitar properly!"

I would be lying if I was to say to you all that I liked every song. I don't. But that doesn't bother me, and I'm sure Marvin couldn't give a toss what I think anyway!

The opening song, The Field Of Fallen Angels, has a very Jadisy vibe, the Hampshire sound. Marvin surprised us here by singing, though he'd sworn he'd only do backing vocals. Still, he sings well, so why pay anyone else to do it? A Part Of Me is a 'nice' song, that doesn't appeal to me much. Perhaps I'm not nice. Special mention must be made of Paul Cooks excellent tambourineing, which rescues the whole song, and sets the new standard for tambourines.

Quilmes is a solo peice, that he apparently played badly back in the 70's, but he's got the hang of it now! If you've seen his live set, you'll've heard this un. The Days Of Our Lives is reminiscient of the slow Menel IQ stuff, a slow, lighter waving final encore type song. Nothing to do with the Queen song. Luckily. TW's sax gives this a meloncholy edge.

Fusions baroqueish start gives way to an architypical Holmsian guitar in a track that could have fitted into Tales From The Lush Attic quite easily. The Final Solution is a straight forwards AOR rocker, rescued by some IQisms. Picnic is where Widge puts down his piano, and picks up his guitar, for a simply complex tune that has you looking towards the horizon... Very melodic. Very Nice. I like it. I'll have a sandwich and some fizzy pop, please!

Overload starts off with a slow soundscape, which builds up in bursts, slowly, into a very IQ track that was dropped from Subterranea. Probably a mistake as I think it pisses over most of that album. What IQ should have done, is find a place in the live set for this song (and a couple of others). That would have made the live CD a must buy. As far as I'm concerned, this song is worth the cover price on it's own.

Tatras is the penultimate song, in it's proper orchestrated version, rather than the weedy version on Wetton's Normansalad album. Evensong closes the album sweetly, in it's own gentle way. Nice. As fans of the Fast Show like to say. At every opportunity.

So, on the whole I like the album, and I wouldn't part with my copy, even though it's currently doing the rounds in Holland! Like I said, not a must have, but an interesting glimpse inside the mind of Britains most loved fluffy bunny keyboard player.

Nice.

Widge. Years ago. With Jadis.