THE CIVIL SURFACE

Here it is!! Another controversial album from the Canterburian Scene, the prosecution of the ideas developed within "The Polite Force" and- as for this latter- a further uneven concept album...well, by going from the track "Germ Patrol" (not far away from the best hits by National Health and- above all- Hatfield and The North) to the short "Nearch" of side 2, there's no continuity. They start by means of a planned and structured music project (like inside "The Polite.."), but then They are not strictly according to logic anymore (of a clever music structure I mean..), cause the band is always in search of a certain "progressiveness"- regarding their improvisational passages (a difficult aim in itself) which often loose the direction!! In fact, often in the middle between jazz and a psychedelic prog a-la Soft Machine, sometimes their music is not satisfying at all and it could disturb me after a repetitive listening to it!!

Nevertheless I recognize Dave Stewart (here playing the organ, the piano and even a bass guitar!) as a true "master mind" of this project- as well as of the whole Canterburian scene along with Steve Hilage and Robert Wyatt- (despite a few defects which portray all these characters when They try to create an innovative composition...) and for me it could be enough to judge the present effort as an interesting product after all...even though it's not coherent and almost totally unhomogeneous, perhaps making me erase one star from the final score!!

So make your own choice at the end, cause an objective evaluation is difficult here!