FOURTH

Fourth is the only Soft Machine's studio album, recorded with the same line-up as previous release (Third in this case). If Third was for band a revolutionary step from jazzy psychedelic pop/rock to complex jazz-rock territory, Fourth is excellent evolutionary example.

You will hardly find band's psychedelic pop/rock roots on Fourth, they are gone forever (both together with Wyatt vocals;dissatisfied with new direction he will leave band soon after Fourth will be released.Almost all albums compositions are written by Hopper, and band's sound moved towards more interplays between all musicians (instead of more solo oriented earlier works).

Music there is fully instrumental perfectly balanced complex jazz fusion with plenty of Dean's sax soloing (but still not extremely free form),Wyatt's drumming is possibly his ever best and all band sounds as real team of equal skilled musicians.Additional brass section and acoustic bassist add more texture to the sound.

Fourth is strong next step after excellent Third, step towards more jazz direction (for good and bad), and one of the best band's release ever. Possibly, only on this album you can find so good collective work of all musicians as one team and great balance between free form improvisation and structured compositions.