THREE FRIENDS

This record comes after the excellent "Acquiring the taste". The use of string instruments as rythmic short strokes and melodic patterns on "Peel the paint" is interesting. On this track, Gary Green REALLY goes wild with his best hard rock solo ever recorded: he even has a psychedelic part! On "Mister class and quality", they begin to sound a bit dissonant; the next track, "3 Friends", is absolutely impressive: a very poignant & powerful combination of floating organ and vocals through a rythmic hard rock mood. "Schooldays" is the best track of this record: a VERY subtle mix of small percussions, delicate electric guitars and perfect lead & backing vocals; the bass reaches an outstanding level of speed & complexity, just before a poignant piano part enters with nostalgic voices & floating mellotron; then, a rather jazzy part, very fast & pleasant, gives some joyfulness to the track. The new drummer does a great job.

The number of involved keyboards is rather limited: mostly organ, piano and mellotron. Globally, I find this record a bit less refined and subtle, rather more straight forward prog hard rock than the previous record.

My rating: 4.5/5