BLOOD, SWEAT & TEARS 3

After their huge-selling second album, BS&T regrouped in their NY theatre and then quickly went to studio to record their third album, still mixing unlikely covers with their own original songs. A largely unchanged line-up, but the insufferable DCLayton Thomas is obviously gaining in power and is laying its crooner fantasies all over the group.

After a largely useless soul version (but acceptable) of the Cab Calloway classis Hi Dee Ho, guitarist's Katz's song The Battle is actually fairly interesting with integrated use of the horn section (as opposed to call and response). Things start derailing with the up-tempo piano-led Lucrecia and its Reprise, which sounds like second rate Chicago, although the horn work in the Reprise is impressive. James Taylor's Fire & Rain is again useless and allows David Sinatra-Thomas to be as cheeeeeeesy as you'd fear him to become, and it's ditto for Nyru's He's Runner. The same thing can be said of Lonesome Suzie, where "Ol'Brown Eyes" Clayton does his crooner thing and does it his way. And Joe Cocker's (a real crooner himself) Something Comin' On cover is more upbeat, but believe Joe's Helping Friends do it better.

An interesting but sometimes cheesy track is the Symphony/Sympathy thing, divided into movement and sub-sections, which reads more like throwing dust in our eyes, rather than BS&T being classical composers. If BS&T had missed Traffic's Smiling Phases, they're doing better with 40000 Headmen, but let's face it's the song's outstanding qualities that do much of the job >> it's one of those tune that's so good it's hard to sully it up. The job is correctly done, but no more.

BS&T's third album is definitely a sort of carbon copy of its predecessor, except that Frank Clayton- Sinathomas crooner ambitions have become more evident and this would only get worse in following albums. Cheeeeesy stuff, and not even smelling the way it should, here it's almost foul. Best avoided unless you actually like second rate Ol Blue Eyes impersonators

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