PHOENIX FUTURE

It's never a great sign when the best tracks on an album are the novelty songs, and when it's from way back in the 1970s, and sounds retro even for that time, well.... This is the 3rd and last of PAUL BRETT's vocal oriented solo albums from the 1970s, and likely the weakest. Its predecessor, "Clocks" was a soft folk rock exploration with country music encroaching here and there, while "Phoenix Future", in spite of its adventurous title, is ensconced in acoustic blues for want of a better single term that captures its character. His playing and singing are still fine but the songs don't really stand out except or a few catch phrases like "Yesterday's Man", "Grandma's upright piano" (the aforementioned standout), "La Mer D'Amour" (sic, sung in decent french!) and "Better the Devil you know" among them, while "Liquid Lines" struts a toe tapping rhythm. What's sorely missed in the arrangements are the violins, flutes, and keyboards of prior work; even a few strings would help. Brett is too skilled and amiable to fail completely at anything, but I would burn through all of his other 1970s output before raking in these ashes.