STILL [AKA: STILLUSION]

Still was a hard album for me to get into when first released on CD as it suffered from abrasive sounding EQing to go along with it's unattractive (for me) sound mix, with Peter Sinfield's vocals deep in the mix and heavily bathed in echo. Lo and behold, a 2009 remastered edition with proper EQing by Esoteric Records made for a listenable sound. More to my surprise was discovering that this double CD's second disc contained the album's first mixes of all the songs with Sinfield's echo-less vocals up front and the music pushed more to the back. And that was a God send as Peter's elfin voice was front and center when espousing his poetic lyrics.

For those that may not know, Sinfield was King Crimson's lyricist for that august band's first four albums, as well as their artistic director, and was always billed on the albums as a full member. After splitting for KC, Peter created this solo album with support by Crimson alumni like Greg Lake, John Wetton, Boz Burrell, Keith Tippet and the incredible Mel Collins, who also served as this album's co-producer and musical arranger. The result is a lavish and lush mix of sound on this album's eclectic group of songs, with a deep resemblance to some of the adventurous jazz and orchestral musical mixes found on Crimson's Lizard album. With Mel Collins' sax and flute mixed with session player's horns, it could not be anything else. To be fair, the sound is more like a Lizard lite album. This is true with songs like "Under The Sky", "Wholesale Foods", "Envelopes Of Yesterday", "Piper" (a whimsical tune with Collin's majestic flute), " A House Of Hopes And Dreams", "and "Night People". The album also includes a faux country tune supported by steel guitar from a guesting B.J Cole. Of note is the leadoff track "The Song Of The Sea Goat" with it's reflective lyrical musings on top of some very esoteric organ, as well as the similarly constructed title track. "Still" has more otherworldly musing from Sinfield on the song's verses with the dramatic choruses sung in grand style by Greg Lake.

The major drawback to Still is that Sinfield has a very thin weak voice that only works well on the nearly spoken songs like the majestic lead off track and fails on a hard pseudo rocker like "Wholefood Boogie", However, Sinfeild has wonderfully entertaining phrasing, similar to Roy Harper's, which really helps.

Still is a very pleasant album that contains some of Sinfields best lyrics. At least with the 2009 Esoteric CD, one can actually hear them. 3.5 stars rounded down to 3.