WAR CHILD

A divisive album among fans, but I find it mostly excellent. Although the album starts out a bit shaky with the first couple tracks having somewhat odd and less appealing melodies and arrangements, the album takes off from there with the rest of side 1 delivering unique and interesting songs, and then soars with an excellent second half. Anderson uses some of the songs to respond to his critics, but in generally clever ways. The use of additional instrumentation, such as saxophone, accordion, and sitar(?), adds delightful elements to several songs, and the band keeps experimenting and adding additional sounds and textures to their music. Best tracks: Skating Away, Only Solitaire, Third Hoorah, Two Fingers, Ladies, Back-Door Angels. Weaker tracks: War Child, Queen and Country. Rating: 4.0