TIME II

When I first heard TIME's second album in mid 1980s I was more than dissapointed. Indeed, gone was the original band line-up and the leader Dado Topic had to reasemble a group of musicians for "Time II" after serving time in prison for neglecting compulsory military service, where he actually wrote most of these songs.

What really makes this album a minor effort is its inconsistency, having two totally different sides like they do not belong to the same record. The first half is filled with three ballads, two of which are excellent: "Divlje guske" has an interesting interplay between guitar and electric piano, while "Balada o 2000" has interesting "reverb" effect and effective but short Moog solos."Da li znas da te volim" was extremely popular (and still is in ex-YU countries) love ballad with piano and Mellotron.

The second half is just mediocre rock'n'roll and, in spite of some superb guitar work of Dragi Jelic (ex-YU GRUPA), presents weak and uninspired songs including even an unsuccessful forray into heavy metal. Only the closing track "Zivjeti slobodno" is better, with lyrics directly inspired by prison life. The cover artwork is quite good though.

All in all, this album is hardly to be recommended for prog fans, in spite of 50% of good material, since the style performed is not really progressive. Nevertheless, more enthusiastic listeners will enjoy it occasionally. "Time II" was re-issued coupled with the third album "Zivot u cizmama s visokom petom" on a single CD by Raglas Records/Krin Music/PGP RTS in 1996.