3

This album was actually my introduction to Focus and there is a definite nostalgia connected to this music for me. Still, I must be honest and admit that Focus 3 is really not the great album I want it to be.

The band had a great deal of material prepared for this album and decided not to leave any of it in the recording studio. If that was not the case, at least that's the feeling I get whenever I listen to it! I honestly think that Round Goes The Gossip and Focus III are two of the band's best achievements. Sylvia, Love Remembered, Carnival Fugue and Elspeth Of Nottingham work as nice interludes, but then we have those lengthy jam tracks, towards the end of the album, that completely contradict everything that came before them. I'm talking about Answers? Questions! Questions? Answers!, clearly titled perfectly for a jam track, and the 26+ minute monster jam titled Anonymous Two. The individual solos spots get tiresome pretty fast and, if I had my say, this track could have easily been cut down to only about 4-5 minutes in length!

Even though Focus 3 might not be the great album that my memories what it to be, it's not really a total disaster either. I can definitely recommend it to everyone who has already heard the essentials like the debut album, Moving Waves and Hamburger Concerto. The music that is good here might actually be the best that Focus have ever recorded while the low points only suffer because they feel excessive. Therefore a good, but non-essential rating with a plus sign at the end!

***** star songs: Round Goes The Gossip (5:13) Sylvia (3:32) Focus III (6:04)

**** star songs: Love Remembered (2:49) Carnival Fugue (6:09) Answers? Questions! Questions? Answers! (13:55) Elspeth Of Nottingham (3:06)

*** star songs: Anonymous Two (26:19)