LIVESTOCK

British fusion acts can have a little more grace and elegance than their American Stateside peers. Many of the American fusion acts attacked their instruments with a fluid forceful energy while the likes of Ian Carr's Nucleus, and indeed Brand X, have a lot more subtle traits in their music. This live album, which came after two studio albums, is a fine and easy flowing album but it is not without a sharp edge and the odd esoteric swing, but thats the thing, the swing. And there is plenty in this live recording. John Goddall is a guitarist with all the chops and talent to give the music a wide scope as he spins off many thoughtful, insightful and engaging solos while being complimented by the bass playing of Percy Jones who flows throughout the session with some neat and tidy fretless bass. Lifestock is a dark horse in the fusion canon, and while Phil Collins was gearing up to leave the band to head back to dullsville (later seventies Genesis) before completely losing the plot (yes, eighties pop wankdom), it is so much more than his side project. His replacement Kenwood Dennard, who plays on two of this album live tracks, certainly adds more colour to the pieces and is a much more progressive drummer in my mind, but then I can't stand Collins in the first place, not as a drummer but as a person-yet I have never met him-pop stars eh?. Like a couple of the Brand X albums, Livestock may have come late in the day of the fusion era and its peak but it is none the less a towering and worthy album with a silent, even hypnotic, ambient as well as being an engaging listen, an album for many occasions and one which is never obtrusive. I don't know why, but I get a distinct night time feel from this album...