SELLING ENGLAND BY THE POUND

Well, it seems I write a lot of reviews in reaction to other reviews, but I just couldn't let the previous 2 star review go without comment. This album is not what I consider a masterpiece, but it is so close as to almost not matter. Dancing With The Moonlit Knight, Firth Of Fifth, and Cinema Show are enough to give this album 4 stars all by themselves. Classic prog rock / art rock with the only flaw in any of them being, IMO, the keyboard solo in Cinema Show. I realized it is sacrelidge to criticize it, but I find it very simplistic and uninspired. It has moments of nice melodic touches and references to other parts of the song, but it is just too weak to really be a finale to the rest of the song. Still the way the underlying music segues into Asle Of Plenty is very nice and a great way to end the album. The two turkeys on this album for me are More Fool Me, a harbinger of lame music to come from the Collins era, and After The Ordeal, a fairly uneventful and uninteresting instrumental. Unlike many people, I don't have a big problem with Battle Of Epping Forest. It has good moments, and even though it doesn't really work as a whole, it is an interesting experiment. I Know What I Like is okay, a decent prog / pop song that works pretty well and has an unusual intro and outro to offset its somewhat poppish body. So, all in all, three classic and truely great songs alone really give this the four stars (they are also 3 of the 4 long songs on the album), with only 2 songs that I would say are really sub par for a band of this quality.