BRUFORD: ONE OF A KIND

Blending the Canterbury-influenced style of Feels Good to Me with the more straight-ahead fusion of the first UK album should have resulted in a dynamite hit. However, One of a Kind is hampered from being better than merely "good" by several factors. First off, Dave Stewart's keyboards - it's not the way he plays them, which is as competent and skilled as ever, but some of the digital synths used sound horribly dated nowadays - even compared to keyboards he played on the first Egg album a decade earlier! This is particularly prominent on the opening track; dig deeper and you will find better synthesiser textures hidden beneath.

Secondly, the production job on the album is smooth, polished, professional and inoffensive - and castrates the album just when it needs to rock the hell out, as on the should-be-foreboding closing track The Sahara of Snow. On balance, not as good as its predecessor, though still worth it if you are a fan of the musicians involved.