THE CANTERBURY COLLECTION

A compilation/complication into their discography . Was there a need to release a best of from those albums aimed at ? This one takes tracks from Better by Far, The Album and Back To Front. As you can see, certainly not the high point of this band. Best track on here , the reggae-ish Clear Blue Sky. Best avoided

Never before I had listened to any CARAVAN album, so having seen this one at discount in the local bookshop, I decided to check it out. Wrong! I should have consulted some reference before buying it. However it is not entirely a crap, being the music you can listen to while doing something else, without being annoyed. It actually consists of songs from two albums: "The Album" and "Back to Front", which I can see from these reviews are not regarded as a creative peak of their career. Generally the songs from the former sound better to me, while the last three tracks are totally unneeded. New wave ska/reggae revival influence is obvious in "Clear Blue Sky", but without much purpose indeed. Listening only to this CD one can wonder why this band is considered "progressive", because the sound is very light and close to AOR or soft-rock of say CHICAGO type. But this is obviously not representative piece and as such for collectors only (the track "Its Never Too Late" was previously unreleased on album). This CD was actually issued 1986 by Kingdom Records.