INTERNAL EXILE

Vigil was a promising album and I was expecting much more from this follow-up. It was the time when I had to quit to be resistant to the new technologies and bought a CD reader, as very few titles were still available in vinyl format. This was one of my last vinyls.

The first unusual and somewhat unprofessional thing is that the lirycs of Shadowplay are printed incomplete. A note says that the label had printed the sleeve when they were not ready yet. "Shadowplay" looks so: an incomplete song. It's like it was meant to be a long track if not a suite, but it finished to be a 6 minutes song, quite similar in the structure to Vigil. Not a bad song, but nothing new.

If I'm not wrong, "Credo" is the tarck which should have been the album's "single", like Big Wedge on Vigil, but it's too repetitive and I find it particularily weak.

It's on the pop side that this album has the best things: form "Just Good Friends" to "Dear Friend" we have four very good songs, but there's not much prog inside. From a musical point of view they are closer to Phil Collins than to Peter Gabriel. Well don't take me too seriously, I like Fish much more than Phil Collins and I just wanted to give an idea, not to compare the two.

The original edition doesn't have the bonus track so I can't say anything about it. I won't buy it again for one song.

"Tongues" is a song that I don't like very much but it's not absolutely bad. In this case it's question of personal tastes. It doesn't meet mine.

The vinyl has just one track more. The title track is nice and not too much serious. It's a funny song with a celtic (Scottish) final. Let's dance....

Not a bad album at all, it was quite a disappointment for me as I was expecting something better, but it's an album that I still listen to sometimes (I have bought a very cheap CD edition which contains the same tracks of the vinyl). I think that the current rating that this album has on PA is appropriate. Just a little below 3 stars, but I can't give it 2,94...