WELCOME HOME

Recently I've been re-visiting my Osibisa LP's (which I've owned for almost 10 years) and I am pretty pleased with the results - of their first 6 releases I didn't really go for 'W)Yaya' - nice Roger Dean artwork but there's something about the music I didn't 'click' with. I got rid of it. On the other hand, 'Welcome Home' presented a somewhat commercial direction from the band, but I enjoy quite a few tracks....

'Sunshine Day' was apparently a hit single, and they have used a snippet of the song, plugging a local television station over here in Australia. The song itself is rather good, with an excellent electric-piano solo from keyboarder Kiki Gyan, memorable riff and a cool 70's vibe. The title track heads toward a ballad style, but is still an engaging and well arranged track. 'Densu' is a little bit straight-forward, with a 'groovy' vibe present. 'Chooboi (Heave-Ho)' is basically an instrumental melody with some chanting at various points and shows-off the brass instruments - a fairly enjoyable piece of music, even if a little basic.

'Do It (Like it Is)' is more commercial, but without any 'frills', thus rendering it quite an ordinary track. 'Right Now' is very close to the mundane as the previous song was. What comes up next is a great instrumental composition entitled 'Seaside - Meditation', with a great e-piano progression (poly-rhythmic, I think), well organised percussion, great guitar soloing from Dell Richardson, and could be considered as the high-light of this album - shame it wasn't longer. 'Uhuru' strikes me as a rather standard track, and album closer, 'Kolomashie', is another traditional vocal/percussive arrangement, but not as exciting as previous creations. Overall, 'Welcome Home' teeters between the 'Collectors/ Fans only' and the 'Good but inessential' rating. 2.5.