BIG GENERATOR

After having heard some of their earlier stuff, I can now safely say that this was a bit of a mis-step. Why? Well, the production is the only thing I can take umbrage with here. It's a bit bi-polar, moving from dirty to clean at the drop of a hat. That's not something that should be done with precise-sounding pop songs of this nature. For a collection of songs like this, you need a big-sounding pop production, which is noticeably missing. Now...take a look at that last sentence. Notice the word "prog" was never used. Why is that? Because there is no prog (IMO) to be had. Look all you like, but you'll find none. This is what frustrates the average prog elitist. They look and look for something proggish, only to have it backfire. So there's no prog here. But it's still not as terrible as some (many) would have John Q. Music Listener to believe. To judge an album by what the group did in the past (especially 10-15 years prior) is fruitless and silly. Besides, as a pop record, it's perfectly fine to listen to on its own. RHYTHM OF LOVE kicks things off quite nicely, with soaring harmonies aided by metallic- edged guitars and an underpinning of throbbing bass and drums. It's got a great melody, with some hot leadwork from Rabin; totally underappreciated, IMO. What else do I like? Well, let's see: LOVE WILL FIND A WAY, with its bluesy, funky harmonica solo, I'M RUNNING, which is a fantastic song in its own right. The way the band performs this track moves me to tears, and I can't exactly point out why. Is it the guitar? The keyboards? The vocal(s)? I dunno. All I can say is: listen to it for yourself; judge it by its own merits, and not what they've done in the past. You might feel the same way reagrding the record as a whole.