FISH OUT OF WATER

I think it is quite funny that people would call this a masterpiece. No one can dispute that Chris Squire is a brilliant bassist and that the musicians he has gathered to help him on "Fish Out of Water" are excellent. The problem here are the compositions. They are not weak or badly composed, they just don´t impress me. I think this sounds like Yes leftovers. Not bad but not quite good either. Pretty mediocre if you ask me.

One other problem is Chris Squire´s voice which I find weak here. It is excellent when he sings second voice in Yes, but singing lead is not his game. It´s comparable to a band like Alice In Chains. When Layne sang the lead and Jerry sang backing vocals it sounded like heaven. But at the end of their career when Layne was too wasted on drugs, Jerry would sing much of their material when they played live. Now Jerry like Chris Squire is a good vocalist, but he is not excellent like Layne or Jon Anderson. I can understand why he would sing lead on his own solo album, but it doesn´t impress me.

The two long songs are clearly the best here. But not really interesting. 3 stars might even be too high here but the quality is too high for 2 stars so 3 stars it is even though this is not an album I will listen to very often.