RING OF CHANGES

I think that the whole "hey guys, let's hold back rating to this album, because it's not progressive enough" attitude gets finally a bit old when it comes to sit, shut up, and listen to it for a while.

It's not that the vocals had change, or the melodies had stop coming, or the rythmic changes in pace an accent had rendered less impresive than before. It's something much more basic, I think: the mainstream air over several of the tracks. And we all know that mainstream is the enemy. Even worse, you can hear some vocal harmonies in "Looking From the Outside" clearly reminiscing of the Bee Gees, to the point that probably this song wouldn't be out of place in, let's say, Living Eyes (1981).

Epochal influences, things floating in the air by then, but nothing spoiling the goods. I'll take a risk stating the obvious: these people were musicians, not monks cloistered away from the real world. And I'm glad for that.