CHOCOLATE KINGS

Ok, context: One wonderful summer, when I was young enough to do daft things like this, I spent with the perfect hippie chick and this was the soundtrack to those late night chats and drinking black coffee while watching the sun rise type interludes. So yes there may be a bias here but surely most music evokes a time and a place and people..... Anyhow, mumble, mumble years on, how does Chocolate Kings stand up? It was their first album as a 6 piece and featured the new vocals of Bernado Lanzetti...who was fluent in English...and this shows in comparison to the vocals on earlier albums (those versions sung in English). Also, as my intro to PFM then this was the touchstone and, as much as I like earlier output (discovered later), they don't work for me as the vocals are weak. Kings just transports me back but actually sounds astonishingly fresh, again listening to any 1975 prog as comparison. Actually that is my first problem here. Who to compare to? This has become so much my template that I usually compare others to PFM/Chocolate Kings! Ok, being on ELP's Manticore label then it is churlish not to mention them in passing....but this is not a keys heavy drum driven thing....PFM always had the light and shade balance of multi instruments. Yes it does have some real kick ass sections, the opening track 'From Under' as one example but they can segue seamlessly into gorgeous acoustic passages as in 'Harlequin'. The electric violin that appears throughout makes Curved Air (for one) sound rather limited and PFM used it as 'part of' rather than bolt on or 'lead' even allowing for its prominence in 'Out On The Roundabout'...so perhaps Jean- Luc Ponty has to be mentioned in passing.....without the fusion! The title track is the most 'commercial', perhaps looking for the 'Celebration' groove again. Everything bears the hallmarks of superb musician ship and the interplay between them, especially on the mirrored lines in 'Roundabout', is breathtakingly dexterous. No song has anything other than balanced dynamics and the longer 4 tracks make 7 plus minutes feel short, although they do perhaps allow 'Paper Charms' to over stay its suspended keyboard chord atmospherics welcome...for all the flute/sounding distractions...and it never quite breaks out in as smooth a way as previous tracks. But it does have a great Genesis type rolling hook once it gets in to stride. So being objective, how does the listening go, without the summer and previously mentioned person as accompaniment? It goes damned well and I had been guilty of seeing the album as the background when in fact it should have been the foreground! This is as good as it gets in a 4 000 album collection....although I would add an extra star if I could for Lady Stef...where ever she may be! Perfection!