JET LAG

When I first heard PFM´s Jet Lag I thought I bought the wrong album. The first track is allright: a short classical guitar intro that shows the excellent talents of Franco Mussida. But then what you hear is anything but PFM. Or what this great italian group used to be. Without warning they changed their marvelous symphonic sound (with strong early King Crimson influences) into a jazz rock/fusion combo. I wonder if these changes had something to do with the leaving of founder member Mauro Pagani an year before. Probably it did.

There was no transition at all. Several tracks are instrumental and if someone told me at the time they were Premiata Forneria Marconi without showing me the cover, I´d laugh at that remark. It´s not that the record is bad. No. Actually I find the music pleasant and very well perfomed, as usual. Certainly PFM wouldn´t have the title of Italy´s premiere prog band without its merits. They were extremely gifted musicians and fine songwriters. Photos Of Ghosts and The World Became The World are among my favorite prog albums of the 70´s. But Jet Lag has nothing to do with them. Even the weaker Chocolate Kings gave no hint their sound wold make such turn. The music in Jet Lag may be good but it is completely uncharacteristic.

Conclusion: it´s a matter of taste, I guess. I didn´t like it at all at the time. I was not very fond of jazz rock and I completely lost interest in PFM after that. I think this style of music did not exactly suited PFM´s audience either. A pity. They were great, really. Even though nowadays I do think it is better than I first thought, I can´t give this album more than 2,5 stars. Even for jazz rock fusion fans there are better works than this one.

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