NINE SONGS OF JOHN LENNON

I´ve avoided this CD for years. First I´m not really that big fan of John Lennon and to see a prog band doing an entirely album of his songs seems to be totally pointless. Even more so if the record was their second, after the promising but hardly essential Basnie. However, I had the opportunity to finally listening when a friend gave me a copy a few days ago. I was quite surprised of how good it actually was: the songs are mostly a total remake of the original, yet they preserve their essence in many ways and it is a respectful work. Looking back, it was also Collage´s first work with their classic line up of Robert Amirian on vocals, Mirek Gil (guitars), Piotr Mintay Witkowski (bass) and the genius Krzysztof Palczewski on keyboards, plus leader and drummer Wojtek Szadkowski.

Of course it is the classic case of hit and miss, but there is little double that they did a terrific job considering the iconic and legendary status of the author of the material. Imagine and Woman for instance don´t get even close to the beauty and power of the original versions. However, tracks like God (the longest and most progressive of them all), Tomorrow Never Knows, Give Peace A Chance and Cold Turkey are fine examples of how creative, bold and unique Collage was from the very start (and they understood Lennon´s message like so few actually did).

In the end, a nice homage to one of rock´s great songwriters. And they did it giving the songs the full Collage treatment that would emerge in all its power in the form of their next release, the classic Moonshine.

Rating: 3 stars. Good, but not essential.