HAMBURGER CONCERTO

Naming your album HAMBURGER CONCERTO most likely means you don't take your music too seriously. Stranger enough, the music here sounds like it was created by four dedicated, serious musos with tastes for jazz and classical musics. Get ready for a dizzying array of bluesy guitar things, Hammond drives and classical sensibilities.

I've heard only MOVING WAVES before this, and while there isn't a standout track like ''Hocus Pocus'', HAMBURGER CONCERTO is much better on the consistency end of things. It's like biting into a perfect burger that's juicy and tasty with eat bite (apologies to all the vegetarians on this site). Focus really find their stride here and deliver series after series of top notch instrumental performances, save for one problem.

It all starts with a brief introduction followed by the uptempo, high-octane ''Harem Scarem'' that tries to repeat the success of ''Hocus Pocus''. While it's more musically engaging, they managed to rip off Miles Davis's ''It's About That Time'' (from IN A SILENT WAY) somewhere in the middle. They manage to make up for this error on the sometimes jazzy, sometimes Medieval ''La Cathedral...'' and the partially heavy, bass chord driven ''Birth''.

MOVING WAVES has an epic in ''Eruption'' that at best, is very inconsistent in delivery as too many ideas are shoved into the piece and way too many soft and dry spots are there. ''Hamburger Concerto'' seems to fix these problems making a great epic throughout the twenty minute duration. Best of all for my tastes, they only play around with a few themes and extend them properly. Thijs van Leer even offers a few goofy vocals for kicks.

Not really the best album from the symphonic prog parts, but definitely one of the most enjoyable.