HOPE

A straightforward atttempt at plagiarising ELO, the Beatles, Yes and Queen with a bit of Floyd thown in for good measure. Things begin off promisingly enough with 'We're off you know' which is like watching one of those horrible religious channels on TV where everyone has smiles the size of water melons, doing the 'bouncy-bouncy and waving their arms in the air. Oh, and by the way, this is the one that everyone talks about, which sounds more like the Beatles than the Beatles did themselves!.

On track 2 - 'Madman' - the guitarist has evidently been listening to too much Floyd. Those guitars are straight off 'Animals'. 'The Loneliest of Creatures' is just too silly for words - with lead vocalist John Woloschuk trying his hardest to sound like Jon Anderson from 'Yes' with added overblown Queen style overdubs chucked in.

'Hope' is an album that's all over the place stylistically. Clear musical influences are recognised literally every minute. It's not really that bad an album, but the above criticisms make it very easy to tear this one to pieces.

Klaatu appear to be empty headed vessels, ready and willing at the drop of a hat to emulate their contemporaries without any shame at all. Unfortunately the music simply isn't very good - although the keyboards are pretty cool in a cheesy way. Why should I bother with copycats when I can listen to the real thing?

Just for the sheer audacity of the band in general, I've raised this from two to three stars.

But they're still a bunch of ELO wannabes.