UNORTHODOX BEHAVIOUR

Brand X

Jazz Rock/Fusion

4.12 | 412 ratings

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fuxi
Prog Reviewer

I have loved MOROCCAN ROLL (the second Brand X album) for decades, but I only discovered this, the band's debut, a few years ago. How does it measure up?

In all honesty, I don't believe UNORTHODOX BEHAVIOUR ever reaches the same high level as its successor. Its riffs and melodies are similar but (to my feeling) just not as good, its solos are somewhat less remarkable, and the album as a whole offers the reader less colour and less variety - after a couple of tracks, the music starts to sound a little samey.

Still, when all is said and done, UNORTHODOX BEHAVIOUR is still a good example of "progressive fusion" or (if you prefer) "progressive jazz-rock". There are relatively few albums in this genre, and the playing here is so much fun (most of the time) I would recommend it to anyone.

Take "Nuclear Burn", for example. Its main melody is not particularly memorable, but the funky riff with which the album kicks off is irresistible, with Percy Jones' fretless bass, John Goodsall's rhythm guitar and Robin Lumley's Fender Rhodes well to the fore.

"Euthanasia Waltz" is based on a delightful tune strummed on acoustic guitar. It features excellent solos on bass and (once again) Fender Rhodes, very subtly accompanied by Phil Collins.

"Born Ugly" is perhaps the album's most succesful composition, since it features more varied and complex development than any of the other tracks: in that sense, it's closer in spirit to MOROCCAN ROLL.

The title track reminds me of Weather Report. It features a cheeky moog solo: Robin Lumley's British counterpart to Joe Zawinul's Austria-born Africanism!

All in all, UNORTHODOX BEHAVIOUR can be recommended to all lovers of clever, high-spirited instrumental prog.

fuxi | 4/5 | 2007-11-18

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