CHANGE OF SPACE

Change Of Space was supposed to be Patrick Moraz' return to progressive rock after a long period of pure Jazz and Classical works (of which I have not heard most of them). With such expectations any fan of Moraz' best early solo albums and his work with Refugee and Yes are bound to be disappointed with Change Of Space. Like on his 1977 album Out In The Sun, he once again shows poor judgement in choosing vocalists. It seems that Moraz has learned very little over these 30+ years. The instrumentals are only slightly more interesting from a Prog perspective but these often lack direction and any interesting musical ideas or any strong melodious qualities.

The first two tracks are vocal numbers and they work poorly in my opinion. The lyrics are quite cheesy and the soulful vocals are, as I said, not very suitable for this music. The title track is possibly the best song on the whole album. But even here the Glenn Hughes-like lead vocals make a poor fit, and the female, Gospel-like backing vocals do not help the situation. What's even worse is that the drums and some of the keyboards sound as if the album was recorded in the mid-80's! Awful sounds! The only redeeming features on these songs are a couple of half-decent keyboard solos.

The first instrumental, the three part Sonique Prinz Suite, is hardly very impressive and the third part in particular is very repetitive. The second part contains an erratic and completely out-of-place guitar solo that is really bad. Still, this is almost a relief after what has come before. One Day In June with its cheerful, jazzy melody sounds like something we have all heard before. It is hardly very challenging music and is almost like easy-listening Jazz. Cum Spiritu is a nice little New-Age piece that works well as a relaxing interlude but it will hardly blow anyone away. There is not much going on this piece and with almost six minutes in running, this is too long to work as an interlude. The power ballad The Power Of Emotion is very cheesy and embarrassing, sounding as if it came straight of the mid-80's.

Up next is a four part suite (over two tracks on my CD) called Stellar Rivers And Streams Of Lucid Dreams. Here there are some moments that remind of Story Of I with the heavy Latin styled percussion. But this is again lacking in composition and could have worked fine as a soundtrack to some 80's Police film or TV-series. It does not have enough interesting moments to justify its long running time. The New-Age like end part goes on forever.

The album closes with Alien Spaces another New-Age piece with no redeeming features whatsoever. The last couple of minutes of the album consists of just one continuous tone that fades out very, very slowly.

This album is very disappointing and nothing short of an embarrassment.