NUMBER THE BRAVE

Here's another band who was making glorious records in the 70s, trying to fit in the new decade, incorporating the modern (for the time) approach and sounds. But: they weren't exaggerating, and the album, although a bit weaker from their prime albums (songwriting-wise) is not bad, as I said. When I say it's not bad I actually want to say this: there's some Wishbone Ash essence inside. It's much more oriented to boogie-rock and southern rock then it's predecessors (I guess fans of ALLMAN BROTHERS would enjoy this one), but on the other hand they used new wave licks: a simple, repetitive guitar chord playing in staccato...at the moment I expected to hear lyrics of London Calling by THE CLASH. Honestly. I don't have a problem with that.

The other thing is, they changed their sound picture a bit - but don't worry, there are no cheesy synths or 80's drum sounds here - guitars are much wider sound-wise, and they sound great. They were not overdoing the effects.

Early Wishbone's album were prog, or contained some traces of prog...this one contains a shade of a shade of proggy, it's straightforward rock, but the sound offered some innovations, really. It's a new decade. And what I'm missing the most, there are no more vocal harmonies, just plain vocal. Which is not memorable, but at least is not boring.

I can't believe I'm rating this one with three stars. At first sight, it was horrible, then, slightly better but annoying, and after that it grew on me and I learned to appreciate it. Surely it can't be compared with any album that actually deserves three stars. But Number The Brave is charming, and perhaps you should get it to see how is possible for a 70s band to sound decent in the 80s.

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