AIR CUT

Never a big fan of this band, this album is a dramatic cut from their early discography as almost all the musicians are gone from the original line-up. With only Sonja Christina remaining (and to a lesser extent Mike Wedgwood on bass), newcomer Jobson (a credible replacement of both Darryl Way and Francis Monkman) does help somewhat but ultimately cannot save the day. A rather ugly artwork (but that was never CA's forte anyway) and some very roughly cut tracks do not help this album.

As I said above I was never much a fan, but it is clear this album is not helping my opinion as on the first side of this vinyl only the 10-min+ Metamorphosis is really worth a hearing (but flawed as its middle piano section is simply too low level recorded), because both the horrible semi-hard rock opener and its uninventive acoustic follow-up do not have much going for them. But that third track does help Jobson pulling his stronger showing of his career (except for his UK work, this is as good as he ever got) and the group is almost credible as whole. The second side of the album is somewhat more even, but there are no highlights either, save the instrumental Armin. While both the hard-rocking UHF (the middle section) and Easy (but it sounds badly recorded) have their moments, but overall this album confirms Sonja's limits as a singer. In more than a few tracks she slips badly and is simply atrocious when not just passable when not blundering and her lyrics are ... so very very average. The two Wedgewood composition bring very few added value to the album.

Generally, this album is generally regarded by fans as CA's last worthy one, but this writer (I was never easy on this group) does not even consider this a real CA album for its strange line-up does not even resemble the group's usual history. And if not for Metamorphosis, this album would be among their worst. And even with that track, it remains of the lesser or at least a very average one, even compared with the band's weak standards.

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