NORTH STAR

North Star is the first Curved Air studio album containing new material for nearly 40 years (1990's Love Child contained material recorded in the 70's). The new songs are mostly excellent and several are every bit as good as the band's best classic material if not better! My favourite tracks include Time Games, Images And Signs, Interplay, Spider, and Magnetism. The sound is most similar to 1973's Air Cut which is my favourite Curved Air album. The violin heavy passages also remind me of the Symphonic Prog of Kansas.

After many listens I would gladly have given this album a higher rating if it wasn't for the fact that it also contains several re-makes and cover songs. Why couldn't they just have concentrated on the new songs alone? The re-recorded versions of Situations (originally from 1970's Air Conditioning), Puppets and Young Mother (both originally from 1971's Second Album) are all good, but unnecessary. The same must be said of the cover of The Beatles Across The Universe which has been done by so many others.

Other songs that have a history is Colder Than A Rose In Snow which apparently first appeared on Sonja Kristina's self- titled 1980 solo album, and the two covers Spirits In The Material World and Chasing Cars by The Police and by Snow Patrol respectively. I haven't heard any of these songs in their original versions so I cannot comment on how these versions compare to the originals, but even though I enjoy listening to them here I can't help but to feel that this album would have been better had they focused on only new material of their own. Especially as their new songs are really good I don't understand why they felt the need to include covers and re-makes of older songs. Just over 40 minutes of new music would have been enough!

Curved Air is yet another classic progressive Rock band that has returned to the stage in excellent form in recent years and thus proving that the genre is very much alive.

Recommended!

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