AN OUTCAST OF THE ISLANDS

My first reaction to this album was, "Colin Bass has chosen to use Andy Latimer on guitars, that's fine, but why use him on vocals as well?" It turns out that Colin himself is doing the singing, and he happens to sound alot like Mr Latimer. And, as with Camel, the voice suits the music. Even if his is not the most technically blessed, Mr Bass makes up for it with emotion. As well as being very Camelish, albeit mellow even by those standards, "Outcast of the Islands" does sound more like a group effort than a solo album. Bass doesn't grandstand too much although his stellar bass work does come to the fore on occasion, such as on "No Way Back", but there is so much more here to enjoy.

The first half of this work is especially bright, and then it seems to falter in the latter stages like so many overly long CDs of this era. But before then we have such beautiful vocal and instrumental melodies as found in "Macassar", "As Far as I can See", "First Quartet", "Goodbye to Albion" and "Denpassar Moon".

While "this Colin Bass album is easily good enough to warrant 4 stars on a traditional length recording, I must unfortunately dock a star due to the lower quality of the last few songs, which are still not bad but feel like outcasts in the wake of what came before.