TIME-LINE

This is the death throes of a once great Prog band as it struggles for survival in the changing world of the early 1980s. No Prog left here of course, nor any vestige of the melodic mini-epics they had once been so good at, just a very average bunch of generic pop-rock and rock-lite AOR, utterly unoriginal and depressingly uninteresting. At best some of these songs are not too bad: Flight has nice mellow vocals and inventive arrangement; Richard The IX gets a bit ploddy but has a catchy chorus; The Entertainer has some good piano but sounds a bit like Genesis; Orient Express is more lively and features horns. The rest are sadly very average indeed with mechanical sounding beats, uninteresting keyboard based arrangements and forgettable melodies. Even Camera Camera was better than this.

Sadly, Annie's distinctive voice couldn't save this one. Often she sounds forced or uncomfortable, floundering on a lee shore with a falling tide, adopting some unfamiliar and unwelcome vocal mannerisms in her efforts to 'do pop'. The whole thing is summed-up by the album cover - an air-brushed picture of the trio with Duran Duran perms and false swagger. Time-Line is devoid of character, something to make it stand out from the thousands of other faceless 'artists' making this kind of sound. If you like this kind of thing then go get some Duran Duran!