ALLEYCAT

Definitely one of Nucleus' lesser known albums, Alley Cat nonetheless maintains the exceptionally high standards that Ian Carr & Nucleus had set for themselves over the course of numerous albums before this one. It's true that there's little here which is a departure from any of their previous releases, but with a quality of of both songwriting and playing this high, who could blame them? Once again we have fast, intricate, melodic jazz-rock fusion, with moments of high energy interspersed with slow and thoughtful sections, and the continual build-release adding to the overall dynamics. There is some experimentation involved though, with the then-still-novel tinkering with electronics on the first track, but after that it's straight-ahead fusion all the way. All Nucleus lovers should try to get hold of this one, and fans of Soft Machine's mid-period albums will probably also love this, as will anyone who enjoys the likes of Mahavishnu Orchestra, Miles Davis' 'In a Silent Way', Jean-Luc Ponty etc. There are no 'half marks' here of course but if there were I'd give this 4.5 but it isn't quite a 5/5 album so 4 hits the mark.