LARGE AFTERNOON

I should warn everybody that the only reason I got this CD is because a friend at Prog Brazil raved about it. I was thinking to myself that maybe, after 25 years since their last album, this band could come up with something really interesting. Well, only half of the original band is here: Dave Greenslade himself on keyboards,of course, and Tony Reeves on bass, plus newcomers John Young (former Asia member) taking up the place of Dave Lawson on vocals and keyboards, and Chris Cozens substituting Andrew McCulloch on drums. But upon listening to Large Afternoon all you get is the same as before: the musicians are excellent, but songwriting is simply dull.

Worse still is the fact that what was the best feature on all early Greenslades albums (i.e. the vast array of very organic keyboards like Hammond organ, Fender Rhodes electric piano and mini moog) was replaced by very cheese synthesizers. It sounds more like an 80´s recording than a new millennium CD, with such mediocre timbres. The production does not help things much either. As usual with Greenslade the songs themselves are not really bad: they have some nice melodies here and there, but nothing that really stands. Several tracks, like the opener Cakewalk do have an interesting beginning and a kind of build up that unfortunately goes nowhere. Anthem is the best track on the whole album: it does have the closest of a memorable melody line and an accordion-like solo that is quite moving, but really that can not sustain a whole album.

Conclusion: it is no wonder why Greenslade never really made it. They had the techinique but not the songwriting skills necessary to make them stand out. It certainly did not change my opinion about this band. I wonder what my friend saw about Large Afternoon. I can only recommend this one for hardcore fans and collectors. And this is certainly NOT the album for the newbie.

Rating: 2 stars.