TRAFFIC

It is well known that Dave Mason from the beginning wanted to pursue his own ideas, clashing with Winwood et al. over the concept of the band. On the debut album this seemed to be overcome by mutual burst of energy and fresh ideas. But already on this, their second album, one can notice the discrepancy between Mason's attempts to go for mainstream rock and more ambitious projects of other three members. The resulting album sounds much better than the debut in terms of production, but lacks enough strong compositions. The best moments here are small masterpieces of musicianship: heavy blues of "Pearly Queen", folksy acoustic ballad of "40000 Headmen", popular soul hit "Feelin' Alright" and psyche-ballad with wonderful sax "No Time To Live", but the rest is pretty much negligible. Still, this is a good album although not on par with what TRAFFIC could offer.