CAUGHT IN THE LIGHT

BJH's first "Flop", although rather undeservedly when you listen to the album... this is - in many respects - a disc on which Les Holroyd's in top form while John Lees is delivering the weaker moments, but that don't matter much with great songs like "Silver Wings", "Who do we think we are" and, most of all, "Cold War", a track that recalls early classics like "Medicine Man" without sounding backward-glance, the real highlight of the album.

The other Holroyd-Songs are quite nice, too: the catchy "A Matter of time", the "big-gesture" "Copii Romaina" and the sweetly flowing "Great Unknown", in which I only dislike the leadguitars ( too loud ).

John Lees had one fine track in store, too, "Forever Yesterday", but it suffers a bit from the synthesised guitarsounds in the "Bitter tears"-section while the rest of the arrangement is stunning.

The other tracks are somewhat between nice but unessential ( "Back to earth" ) and awfully ill-advised ( "Knoydart" ), the closing "Ballad of Denshaw Mill" ( with Chris Rea-like Guitar-Outro ) would have been best on a fan-club-giveaway at X-mas, no, John Lees has had far greater moments, but all in all the feel of the album is just fine and I even like it better than "Welcome to the Show" ! Rupert