SOMEBODY'S WATCHING

After the departure of Ashton and Field RARE BIRD had to re-arrange drastically their line-up with only one keyboardist left and with the addition of a full-time guitarist. A new drummer (Fred Kelly) joined who got huge support by percussionists Paul Holland and Nic Potter of VDGG. The final result of this change we could hear on their third album "Epic Forest" which moved away from their initially organ-driven sound to a more guitar-based one introducing some funky rhythms. Though being quite different from their first two albums and also not quite on par with them this one had been still quite a solid effort in terms of Prog and a highly enjoyable record. So now what had really happened on their fourth album here in review that actually it can be considered almost disastrous if compared to their previous works. The listed line-up looks impressive in fact but the music which is rather straight forward funk rock, sometimes in a harder vein with some ballads thrown in sounds quite disappointing. There are quite a few guest musicians and vocalists, amongst them John Wetton playing bass and a couple of percussionists contributing to the highly rhythmic and grooving sound of this album. But honestly there have been records by another band from that period called James Gang (not really considered Prog I think, Yer Album and Rides Again, anyone remembers?) I listened to again after ages just recently that were able to fascinate me more than this stuff here. Starting from the title track down to "High in the morning" there are just flaws here, mediocre songs at the best, good enough to run in the back without disturbing. The last one "Dollars" is the only slightly outstanding one in fact without being anything a Prog fan would run miles for. I've to say that this album is actually only for one reason part of my collection since I'm owning their debut as its CD re-release where it has been added on as a sort of "bonus". I would say as a stand-alone record it's even not worth purchasing it as a Prog-fan of this particular band but rather considered a "for completionists-only-one". The same applies even more to its follow-up "Born Again" BTW!