HAMBURGER CONCERTO

Unbelievable! This is one of the most overrated albums I know. To start, yes, the music on this record is pretty good, and especially the title-piece contains some beautiful moments, BUT... Compared to the strong instrumentation of previous albums Focus 3 and Focus II (a.k.a. Moving Waves) this one can be considered as a dissapointment. At first, drummer Colin Allen is boring compared to master drummer Pierre van der Linden, who played on the older records and brought much more swing and power in the band's music. Also, together with guitarist Jan Akkerman, he created a way stronger rhythm-section. There is nothing special on the drums here, just straight-forward stuff. Focus used to experiment more and exciting solo's on guitar and organ are very hard to find. In a compositional way, this album is good, let there be no doubt about it, but I'm really surprised it's rated so high as Focus 3 and Focus II are much more adventurous and contain a much stronger feel in the music.