SUR LA MER

Simply a short warning since I don't want to write a track-by-track review about *this* album: this is no art-pop or at least vaguely intense pop music. I like some of the late-80s pieces by Genesis, I listen to certain pieces by Nelly Furtado and David Guetta and even the widely detested 1983 album "The Present" by The Moody Blues is a nearly excellent album, in my opinion.

But this album is only one thing: a leftover of a band formerly consisting of five members, now reduced to mainly two members who write commercial pop tunes and record them with a drum machine, a guitar, a bass guitar and many squeaky keyboards. Here Comes The Weekend is embarassing all over - the text deals with the fact that the speaker waits for Friday night because then he can go partying. John Lodge, just for the record, was 43 years old when he composed this song. And by the way, didn't Rebecca Black also deal with this topic in her song "Friday"? Vintage Wine is a country pop tune in which Hayward talks about the good old 1960s, regaling on memories of the past. And the music? Worse than generic, a mediocre melody, a standard country chord progression. There is simply no good composition here, apart from parts of the fairly haunting River of Endless Love (including some samples which should sound like Mellotron choir) and the slightly enjoyable opener I Know You're Out There Somewhere. I wouldn't mind the lyrics being bad, many lyrics are, but the music is 100% bland, so there's nothing going on during these 51 minutes. This album is faceless pop all over and the only thing I can do is to warn everyone that you most certainly don't need this record in any way. And that's sad since the Moody Blues concert recordings from the mid-80s emit such a stirring power thanks to the keyboard pyrotechnics by Patrick Moraz. But anyway: avoid this one, even collectors should think thrice whether to buy a good bottle of vintage wine or listening to Justin Hayward sighing at it.

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