THE KICK INSIDE

KB's debut is another one of those albums I still keep in my collection mainly for memorial and sentimental reasons and one that was rather growing dust on my shelf. In fact it wasn't before I purchased her "Aerial"-album just recently that I picked it up to give it a spin after ages. She was just 17 years old when David Gilmour discovered her talents and supported her dealing with EMI in mid 70's and I think I've been about the same age when I heard these songs here first. Of course I liked them very much back then but the term "Prog" wasn't existing yet for me at that time. And in fact I never heard much of a link to this specialized genre in her music, for me it was always rather high quality artistic pop music. I still like the songs of this debut here, no question about it, and whenever I feel the need to listen to some lighter type of music (which hardly ever occurs I've to say) this album has certainly good chances to find its way into my player. But on the other hand there isn't anything present here that would make a sophisticated music lover run miles for. The songs are throughout well arranged, there's a nice balance between more up-tempo ones and ballads and for sure KB' s voice though being still quite premature never sounded that bewitching and native again later on in her career. As usual the most memorable air-play hits like "Kite" and "Wuthering Heights" are by far not the strongest songs. "The man with the child in his eyes" is a wonderful introvert ballad but best one is for me "The saxophone song". Worth mentioning that the musicianship which is presented by almost complete Alan Parsons Project-1978-lineup is really great throughout this record.

I think this has been a very brave, for that period anachronistic and remarkable debut by a highly talented young girl but I'm afraid saying that it sounds a bit dated meanwhile and IMHO it's not to be considered an essential addition to any Prog collection. Only outstanding work (in terms of Prog) is her latest one "Aerial" I would say. I consider the rest of her catalogue rather a kind of "high quality easy listening music". For this one here I would eventually add half star extra!