WORLD OF WONDER

The early years of Jump were defintely productive both in studio and live.So,the English sextet moved on to the recordings of their sophomore album ''World of Wonder'' in 1993,released again on the indepedent Salad Records.

The album is much shorter than their debut and this fact gives hope for a more inspiring material.Unfortunately ''World of Wonder'' not only marks no improvement compared to ''The Winds of Change'',but additionally gone are the few good melodies the band could create.The main problem remains the same.The album is very much commercial sounding with very short tracks,based on its energy and vocal lines,but there is an evident lack of memorable melodies and conveincing songwriting.The style is again straightforward rock with cheesy vocal breaks and groovy guitars,very far from even the UK Neo Prog sound.Jump insist on throwing some Blues and Funk influences here and there,making the album more confusing and less cohesive.The synths remain again on the background with only a couple of good passages,while the guitar work is very amateur and flat.The result is a pretty boring album,which ignores the fundamental principles of Neo Prog.

This album will be propably boring even for the biggest Neo Prog fanatic,but actually I wouldn't recommend it even to a fan of straight rock,as it doesn't contain even one simple memorable track to grab yourself from something to buy it.Not recommended at all,I will just add another half star for the decent ''Where silver calls''.