ROMANTIC WARRIOR

Hey, this is the third 11 in a row, which means this band has arrived at a special juncture in their career. Chick has been playing around with solo output for a while (the debut album the band release being officially pegged as a Corea solo album in the first place), so this band finally achieves the Dustin Tate artistic stagnation award. It's still undeniably high class, the taste is never offended, but it sure can get a little boring if you attempt to actually pay attention to the songs. They ARE quite far away frm their soft beginnings. This album, akin to the last couple, ends up sounding like disruptive space jazz from the Horsehead Nebula. So, I'm at a loss for words. It's better than Rush, (which is slowly becoming one of my personal catch phrases) that much I can say. Gone is any semblance of pop structuring. It's all funk-rock-jazz-fusion meandering ? always majestic, always laden with Corea's deft key strokes, always given to excess and unmanageability, but we're here for that, we can leave that hat at the door. It's not that this album is so much different from te others in that it's the quintessence of their second mark sound. You have the funk, which bleeds into Meola's licks (heavily evident from the illustrious shuffling behind 'Sorceress') At the same time as I can truly be cowed by Sorceress, everything else lacks the same punch. Maybe it's the eleven minute title track, or the obnoxiously trivial Overture, but I'll be dipped in fried tar if I could ever call this music 'in front' music. Chalk it up to Return to Forever to invent ambient-less ambient.

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