SHIP OF MEMORIES

Focus

Symphonic Prog

3.18 | 206 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

Another minor release in Focus' first era.

This is a kind of Tull's "Living in the past", which is a studio album but it's really a bunch of outtakes and b-sides and, then, it's in general catalogued as a compilation. The main difference is because "Living...." was released, in fact, as a compilation. But this is not the case of Ship of Memories, which is also a bunch of b-sides (moreover, there is a re-released version of a song from Mother Focus) released along the previous years, and finally appearing as a studio album in 1976.

Let's analize the songs here:

Low notes: 'Can't believe my eyes' & 'Out of Vesuvius' has nothing interesting to offer, musically speaking. They're such mini-jam sessions, led by Akkerman's crazy guitar attacks. Of course the solos are impressive, like always, but no more. Maybe you can also be dissapointed with Focus V, which is an extremely bland and smooth number, and with the title track, a very short number with good drums, but a little lack of inspiration in the melody. Not to be taken seriously, really.

High notes: The slow-paced 'Red Sky at Night' is maybe the best track. Among a lot of rocker and funk-oriented pieces in the latest years (at that time), this really sound like a Focus tune... very nice. The other outstanding song is the opening track, with medieval flutes and organ, and slower interludes with guitar; this is such a moody song..... As I said before, there's a re-released track: a rocker version of Mother Focus' self-titled song, 'Glider'. This song is quite better than the original IMO; nice guitar, nice percussion, and the excellent vocal work by Thys is most notorious here on 'Glider'.

The rest of the disc is solid enough. Unfortunately, this fine career was ruined by their next album.

NOTE: try to get it remastered with the bonus track: a faster version of Hocus Pocus, with AMAZING guitar by Jan Akkerman.

sircosick | 4/5 | 2007-7-3

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