MUSIC MAGIC

You can understand and hear immediately that the line-up and style changed significantly when compared to the winning "Romantic warrior". RTF now being a fully fletched firmly keyboard driven machine with no equal counterparts with likes of guitar, bass and drums. Chick pulls of a vast array of instruments drawing from jazz, fusion, classical and prog-rock. Most of his formulas are pretty decent apart from some too overblown and majestic sections that are unchallenging at the same time. Latin character and brass section are other highlights. Vocals are a double-edged sword - on one hand, memorable and suitable for jazz/funk groove, on the other hand streamlining the output too much. Overall, the music here is less ambitious and more pretentious than previously. Terrible album name and songs like "So long Mickie Mouse" would be more appropriate for a carousel show.

My personal highlights are the title track with nice Rhode soloing, finally audible guitar and typical Clarke's solo. "So long Mickey Mouse" is from the beginning a clear Clarke's track with echoes of his solo work and better than the name suggests. After the half-mark, the track gets more spectacular with intensive drumming, bass basis and Corea being in a good shape solo. You can even hear Hammond organ which was unusual on a modern fusion record. A killer instrumental workout! "The endless night" is a bit pompeous not ignoring classical music and some prog-rock grooves. The clavinet solo by Clarke is as impressive as any by Wakeman. That's the only composition here where I like vocals and they suit seamlessly.