2nd Round Clas: Birds of Fire v. Arbeit Macht Frei

Relistening...

Birds of Fire has definitely overtaken the debut as my favourite MO album. Cobham is one of those astonishingly rare drummers with the Morello effect where they're every single bit as spellbinding as the leads and as capable of playing softly and quietly as loudly while still having a massive impact. McLaughlin's style has kind of always been 'play-really-fast' but there are some fascinating examples of that on here and it's never really compromised his knack for phrasing, and is tempered a lot by trading with Goodman's violin. The difference between Jan Hammer's playing on that Al di Meola album and this one more or less says it all. On this, Hammer's pulling out all these little flourishes and chord choices that completely change the mood of a moment.

AMF... Stratos is a thoroughly amazing singer and the band are a strong fusion outfit. I think they accomplished more with their next couple of albums and this one kind of falls off a little in places when it leans on rock and conventional fusion and I honestly feel like I can hear a bit of MO's phrasing in places and obviously Ornette Coleman casts a long shadow over that sax sound and the melodies. Probably the strongest debut track ever for any band and the highs are really high. Other than the title track I love completely different bits of the album to the ones I did when I first heard it (L'abbattimento dello Zeppelin really stands out despite the kitschy ending).

Easily the tightest decision this round. This is definitely going to lose me the couple of friends I've still got on here but I think Birds of Fire is the more consistent album. I'm voting for Area to even things up because it's that tight and they really were heading for something admirable, even if it took them an album or two to reach their finest work.