THE RETURN

Well I was quite amazed to see that these guys had come back for an album and still had three original members (out of four), but by the time they had gotten to Belgium in 04 so I could catch their live show - man these guys kick the butts of many younger bands a third of their age - they had lost Vince Martell, but his replacement was no slouch either.

So this album, if you are taking a look at the track listing, IS NOT a live album, but a studio re-recording of some of the classic tracks that propelled them in the legend plus a few other 60's Motown classic receiving similar treatment as did YKMHO. Yummy I hear from the peanut gallery!! Unfortunately this album is rather a miss than a hit some tracks losing all flavour (Shotgun) and others REALLY dragging on (Rare Earth's People Get Ready) and some simply needles (Stewart's closing track)

Actually VF is using the old and tried and proven formula without worrying about whether it has aged well or not or whether their music can handle modern recording techniques. With moderate success, they do manage to record their essence but the recording is of average quality but the real sad thing is that the music in itself fails to convince at least on this recording (but live it is a whole different ballgame), as if these guys were only giving 50%. Even the potentially more exciting stuff as Argent/Zombies's She's Not There or Donovan's Season Of The Witch are clearly sub- par being given a really heavy guitar/metallic feel to suiting the original rearrangements. Actually, Season (even if sub-par in this version) manage to remain the highlight of a rather listless album.

Best avoided unless you are a real unconditional Fudge fan. In that case find your closest candy store instead of the record shop.