WHITE ROCK

Wakeman's second soundtrack album was knocked out with just Wakeman, his regular drummer/percussionmeister Tony Fernandez, and a choir here and there - a comparatively austere effort by Wakeman's standards, if you overlook his usual vast array of keyboards and synthesisers. This would be Wakeman's last solo record before he came back to Yes for Going For the One, and whilst it's competent enough, like No Earthly Connection it provides more evidence that Wakeman's compositional toolkit and well of creativity was beginning to run dry at this point in time.

At its best, it offers decent material of the sort we've largely heard before on Six Wives of Henry VIII and subsequent albums; at other points, it finds Wakeman's efforts to fuse funk and prog (an ongoing thing going back to Six Wives) beginning to wear thin. There's even a bit where he recycles portions of Anne of Cleves from Six Wives (as part of Ice Run). I think it's rather charming - and benefits somewhat from being instrumental (the choir is here to add texture, not coherent vocals) - but would say it's three and a half stars, four for keen prog enthusiasts, and it's in retrospect no surprise that he went back to a stint in Yes to recharge his creative batteries after this.

Whilst Wakeman would remain a highly productive solo artist, it's his run from Six Wives to here which remains the foundation of that solo career, and White Rock pretty much represents the end of that era - a technically proficiently- executed album which nonetheless doesn't contain any creative breakthroughs over and above the blueprint established by his Henry VIII-themed masterpiece.