TOUCH OF MUSIC

On 'Touch Of Music' you can hear a beat/pop band which is going into a progressive direction - stepping on slight symphonic paths exactly I would say. Nothing can prove this better than the opening song Präludium. The BLACKBIRDS started as a beat group in the 1960s and experienced a lot of line-up changes until they produced this album in Cologne at the Rhenus-Studio - with the help of a famous sound engineer called Conny Plank by the way who must have been involved in nearly everything at that time.

The band is still on the run apropos, playing on diverse festivities - however nobody from the 'Touch Of Music' line-up is active anymore today. Okay - back to the album. The Nice respectively ELP reminiscences are coming up when listening to the second song All You Need which belongs to the better tracks. Here we have some sacral moments caused by organ, violin and the vocals. And then Werner Breinig's guitar is taking action for the first time with the straightforward rocking song Return From The War - Wolfgang Bode with a playful bass work should also be mentioned.

The rest of the songs are not really remarkable - except the closing mini epic Come Back which brings back a progressive orientation based on a more complex structure and exceptional flute contributions. The bonus tracks are from a single production released one year before where, enforced by their label, the band name temporarily had changed to 'Blackbirds 2000'.

If there is something special to emphasize then I would mention the rather winsome keyboard work which is very dominant here. Anyway - there have been a lot of bands which were more experimental and tricky in those times. All in all this sounds way too simple to me as if they try to stay in a safe place in most cases - 2.5 stars.