SEVEN SECRETS

Fruupp went into the studio with six songs prepared, but decided to call the album Seven Secrets because that sounded more mystical - The Seventh Secret, the final track which was tossed together in the studio, is a stupid throwaway filler track involving aimless guitar noodling and narration in a goofy fake "old man" voice; the only nice thing I can say about it is that it lasts for barely over a minute and then is, thankfully, over.

Fortunately, it seems that not only were the band short of seven songs, but the six songs they had were pretty decent. This is an album which took a good long while to grow on me - and indeed it was only when I heard the remastered Esoteric version that I came around to it, early CD versions having a somewhat unflattering mix.

Perhaps part of the problem was that guitarist Vincent McCusker, who was such a presence on the debut, seems to have stepped back a little to give the other musicians more of the spotlight this time around - which means that those expecting a continuation of the debut's sound would be disappointed. In addition, Fruupp's compositional process doesn't seem to have come on much since the debut, and often ends up with the band noodling in one particular musical mode or another. The nadir of this is probably towards the end of White Eyes, in which the band end up just playing smooth cocktail jazz for an extended period of time.

Still, on the whole a very solid album which, after hearing the excellent remaster, I'd put a half-notch below Future Legends.