INNER WORLDS

WHAT THE HELL HAPPENNED???I understand that, sometimes, there are comercial demands in terms of image, therefore your face appears on the cover, even if you haven't wrote all the songs. But for this album McLaughlin should, at least, thought twice about that. Don't get me wrong, I don't think, this album is the worst piece of music ever record. In fact there are some good songs like the opening "All In The Family" or "The Way Of The Pilgrim"- the best track of the album - but most of the bad things of this "Inner Worlds" comes, basically because the rest of the band is forcing something that should flow naturally across all the songs: a Jazz Fusion with other danceable rythms (or at least that was the idea)...and I remember that McLaughlin himself said once that the fusion has to ocur in your head first. McLaughlin string arrengements are good enough to sustain a standard pop song and give to it some musical complexity, BUT THIS IS NOT A POP BAND, unfortunatelly the rest of the band didn't feel the same way: The songs had a lack of depthness in the lyrics, and the music is weak if not losing it's path while trying to deliver edgy sounds (Miles Out) - let's not say harmonies - But there is an irregular attempt that althought escapes from this last idea: "Lotus Feet" . A New Age kind of melody that should deserve a better effort in the studio. I guess the band wanted to say goodbye the best way they could, but still, What a disaster!!