ENDANGERED SPECIES

BY the time, the are they the Beatles media hype backlash was in full force. And to top that, the record company was starting to ask for returns on its' investment. Klaatu was in the unfortunate spot of having had complete artistic control until then, & yet the accountants had not seen their rewards. The fans had 3 great albums, the first two being prog classics. Here, the only "real" Klaatu to be found is in the Beatles / Moody Blues melodies that we find in I Can't Help It & Knee Deep In Love, & less so in Howl At The Moon. The rest seems at times forced, with the group trying to bring the harder edge that the label demanded. Hot Box City & Dog Star came out & matched Klaatu's previous forays in hard rock. Paranoia & Set The World On Fire seemed forced. The edge was real, but it came through more in the impression one got that the band was not happy doing these songs. Sell Out, Sell Out ... well ... this ranks among the best anti-record biz song out there. The lyrics are pointed, no B.S. & no dancing around the merry-go-round. How they got away with saying out loud what they were being expected to deliver by the bigwigs, I'll never know. I'm sure that it helped them as much as Gentle Giant's Interview when it came to label support. All Good Things rounds out the album. You could see Paul McCartney knocking this off in his sleep. Was it meant as a melancholic goodbye to the artistic freedom that they had enjoyed before ..........