OUT IN THE SUN

Only "Time for a change" contains very interesting & varied parts: it is the progressive song of the album. You can notice the Latin influences on the album. Is this a music for the Carnival of Rio? Yes, some songs! The rest is an easy "pseudo accessible" rock elaboration, quite nervous, joyful and loaded, with the typical Moraz's expressive Latin oriented keyboards and happy lead vocals.

"Tootsie with my tentacles"

After Patrick Moraz's excellent debut solo album, "Out in the sun" came as something of a disappointment. For this album, Moraz retained John McBurnie to provide the vocals and write the English lyrics, so the prevailing sound is familiar. The album was partly recorded in Brazil where he lived, the influences of the music of that country once again being apparent. The overall feel though is light with strong pop overtones.

The opening title track is a rather strange mixture of Stephen Stills "Love the one you're with", and melodic synth. The Brazilian rhythms come to the fore for the first time on "Rana Batucada". Although this is an original Moraz composition, its basis in the traditional music of Brazil means it sounds extremely familiar. The remaining tracks on the first side of the album are bland pop rock songs with prosaic lyrics and unexciting melodies. That said, "Silver screen" does have a good synthesiser run to close.

The lyrical quality reaches its lowest point on "Tentacles" with "You tootsie with my tentacles, and churn up my insides". The song is a very ordinary pop number, which lacks even the basis of a hook. "Kabala" is a pleasant instrumental which rarely rises above lounge music. You can almost picture Moraz sitting in a corner of the cocktail bar playing this for hours on end.

"My engine is steaming like I said before oh yeah, I don't know where I'm going, don't you know anymore" indicates that it was not only McBurnie who was struggling with the lyrics. These come from "Love-hate-sun-rain-you", the only track whose lyrics McBurnie did not write. They were written by Moraz and Francois Zmirou, who performs lead vocal on the song. Zmirou's style is much more rock orientated giving the track a much rougher style. Unfortunately, this does not help any, the song being very ordinary.

The final track, "Time for a change" is all too true in terms of the album. Fortunately, Moraz does introduce change, by reverting to a generally more prog structure for this 9 minute suite in four movements. The first three sections are instrumental, Moraz building the piece through a variety of synths. The third part "Serenade" is an Emerson like piano recital which leads into the closing section, "Back to nature". Here, McBurnie does a reasonable impression of Dusty Springfield(!), the album closing on a fairly downbeat note.

In all, a very disappointing album, especially since expectations had been raised by Moraz first solo outing. Only "Time for a change" holds any real interest.

This is basically a Pop Prog album with an emphasis on the Pop side of the equation. The instrumental parts range from decent to half-decent, but the vocal parts are quite awful. The lyrics are mostly horrible. There are still some of the Latin/Brazilian influences on some tracks, but also some Jazz, Blues, Rock 'n' Roll, Pop and Disco influences! Maybe late 70's/early 80's Electric Light Orchestra is a good point of reference to this kind of music, but without any really memorable melodies! Maybe the very worst albums by the Alan Parsons Project also could give you some idea, or maybe Rick Wakeman's worst albums of the 80's (remember I'm So Straight I'm A Weirdo, anyone?)

With so many different styles explored, the album as a whole comes off as utterly disjointed and incoherent. There is basically nothing tying the different parts together. Therefore it feels more like a compilation (of leftovers?) than a genuine album effort. As I said, there are some decent instrumental moments where you can sense a progressive approach. And Moraz can really play the keyboards, as we all know. But even these better parts of the album lack anything to make them memorable or to make them stand out.

This is not a poor album in the sense that it is badly recorded or produced. But this album is evidence of poor judgement. It is an album void of anything to make it a worthy successor to The Story Of I. Therefore I can recommend this album to hard core fans and completionists only. (Or maybe to fans of Pop Prog as well?).

Patrick Moraz once played a great music with Yes. But after he left the band, his musical career went different ways. That album is one of many examples.

First of all, it is pop album. OK, professionaly made pop album spiced with some art-pop arrangements. Yes, you can find there some jazzy tunes, plenty of latin/bossanova moments. All music is sunny, well rounded and fits to some holyday commercial on TV.

Moraz are classicaly trained keyboardist, and you can feel it there. Latino rhythm sections does its job well again. But all music atmosphere is absolutely below any progresive rock standard. Even Santana in his pop-Latin soul period played more inspired music. There you have an album, which could be perfectly used for back-up sound during your lunch in good, but not expensive restaurant.