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Ken Hensley - Free Spirit CD (album) cover

FREE SPIRIT

Ken Hensley

 

Prog Related

2.69 | 30 ratings

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ZowieZiggy
Prog Reviewer
2 stars After having left ''Uriah Heep'', Ken released his third solo album five years after its predecessor. This means that it saw the light in '81, and from the first notes of the opening number ''Inside The Mystery'' one can clearly identify that Ken fully embraced the eighties.

But this is not a good news, I'm afraid. These disco and synthetic sounds are quite difficult to bear. Same applies to ''The System'' but this one is even worse: absolutely no feeling and those beats and truly awful. Fortunately, it is a very short song (but most will be on this album).

The first notes from ''When'' seemed to indicate a good old Heep track, but it quickly evolve into the same sort of pop and little interesting music. Still, it can be considered as a highlight from this ''Free Spirit''.

But this album doesn't feature many. The very good guitar solo from ''No More'' reminds me of ''While My Guitar Gently Weeps'' and is a very pleasant moment indeed (but I'm talking only of a portion of a song?).

The rocking ''Brown Eyed Boy'' is another decent track. Ian Paice (Purple) is behind the drum kit and is doing his job with great skills. This song is also more elaborate and its theme change right in the middle is damned pleasant. Again, the guitar work is superb.

This is not a bad album, but good songs are not many. On the contrary, when ''Do You Feel Alright'' starts, there is only one question that comes to my mind: when will it stop? Fortunately, the answer is in less than three minutes. Press next.

I prefer Ken's music while he sticks to the rocking beat (''Telephone'') even if this straight forward rock song is nothing from the other world. In all, I would say that Ken offered an average album. One might think that he will quickly rebound with some better material, but unfortunately the fans will have to wait an enomous amount of years before the release of new material (almost twenty years!).

Two stars.

ZowieZiggy | 2/5 |

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