TO PAGHAM AND BEYOND

3.5 stars. SKIN ALLEY were a Jazz Rock band out of the UK starting in the late sixties. They released 4 studio albums and the first two will be of interest to Prog fans. I do prefer the self titled debut to this the second release. Still a four piece but they managed to get Nick Graham to sing on two tracks, Nick coming from ATOMIC ROOSTER and you would have thought that might have been the cause for them selling more copies but no and the label dropped them. For what it's worth the two tracks Nick sings on are my two least favourites. I much prefer Bob James' singing. He has a cool voice. No mellotron this time around either and the lyrics on this one are lacking in my opinion. Still I like this band but no I can't hit that fourth star.

There's a couple of tracks on here that I really enjoy while the two I mentioned that Nick sings on are my least favourites and the rest are okay. "Big Brother Is Watching You" is one of my top two and the opener. This is a great example of why Bob is such good singer. "Queen Of Bad Intentions" is the other one and again the vocals are the main reason but I just like the sound of this one. Bob adds guitar, sax and flute while the keyboardist adds trumpet besides piano and organ. I would recommend the debut and to a lesser extent this one, both 1970 releases.