RUNT

The genesis of this album has been very well depicted by Easy Livin (as usual should I say). The music available on this album (at least during the first part) is a combo of blues rock (the opener), some syrupy ballads ("Believe In Me", "Once Burned"), some pure rock'n'roll ("Who's That Man") and basic US classic rock ("Devil's Bite"). These songs are rather "short" to make this intro very interesting.

Fortunately, the flip side of the album is much better even if the experimental and pre "Utopia" style "I'm In The Clique" is not of an easy approach. This album is quite diversified (too much maybe): the short spacey and instrumental "There Are No Words" is quite a change compared to the previous track.

But so is the whole album. Too many different musical directions as far as I'm concerned. This lead to a complete lack of unity. The melodic and almost Beatles-esque "Baby Let's Swing?" is one of the most pleasant moment from "Runt". Nice vocal arrangements (but Todd excels in this duty). But even in this mini-suite of less than six minutes, Todd proposes three different parts which are quite alien one from each other.

It is impossible to find any direction here. Just a kaleidoscope of musical styles. The closing and short epic (almost ten minutes) being another example: a jazzy, bluesy and noisy intro, some fine and very melodic vocals (again very much in the Fab Four style), and some good instrumental part to close.

I can't go higher than two stars for this work. Too loose. Better things are to come?