BAśNIE

To me the four albums by Collage are easily ranked. First place is undoubtedly for Moonshine as it's one of the best albums ever to me. The successor Safe is obviously second placed and is a clear four stars for me. The final release Changes (actually a sort of compilation) is clearly the weakest of the four and was at best three stars (2,75). That leaves the famous debut Basnie and this is also the last one to review for me (if you don't mind me leaving the Lennon songs out of this small competition). It's number three where the quality is concerned and I had a long and serious thought about the rating. I think I will leave it at three stars due to the lack of stand out songs. And looking at the rating by others so far this is not a straightforward case by any means.

And that can be quite easily explained. If you have a soft spot for the more folky approach that is detectable on this debut (amongst others caused by the singing in their native language) you might be tempted to give four or even five stars. But I'm afraid I'm not, I only go for compositions and melodies preferably with lots of instrumental solos (hence my love for Moonshine). And that's a bit more problematic with Basnie. The songs are all relatively short (except for the title track being the best track by the way) with dominant vocals and only short instrumental bits and pieces. And on top of this the sound quality is at least questionable.

So even though I believe this debut should be treated with some respect I can't get carried away by it overall and have to limit the score at three stars here. A must have for fans though.