THIS IS WHAT WE DO - LIVE IN POLAND (DVD)

This British band has a very long pre-history with guitarist Tim Birrell and bass player Jim Murdoch having been playing together since the early 70's. It wasn't, however, until the early 90's that they adopted the name of Credo and released their first studio album, Field Of Vision. It then took them another 13 years to create their second album, Rhetoric. This DVD release features a full live performance of the band filmed and recorded in Poland in 2008. All of the songs from Rhetoric are performed here as well as a substantial number of tracks from Field Of Vision, all but one of which are part of a medley. This release is both backward-looking and forward looking as the history of the band is explained in the bonus interview with vocalist Marc Colton and keyboard player Mike Varty and a brand new song that will appear on the next, yet-to-be-released Credo album is played in the set. As such This Is What We Do - Live In Poland is the ultimate Credo product and for most people this is probably all the Credo you will ever need. The sound and picture quality is impeccable and the DVD contains much extra material.

The music of Credo is hardly original or ground-breaking in any sense and it is fair to say that they are a rather typical British Neo-Prog band in the tradition of Marillion and the like. They don't, however, come across as a band that deliberately set out to fit into a particular narrow subgenre or sound in a specific pre-conceived way, but neither do they come across as a band that set out to bend conventions and start something brand new. Rather they simply seem to want to do their own thing and almost as a matter of coincidence they end up sounding like this. They seem to be happy with what they do and they are not trying to be something they are not. An honest and credible approach in the end, I think. Still, they are struggling to find their very own niche and identity. Singer Marc Colton does sound a little bit like Fish, but not as distinctive as the old Marillion vocalist. They sound a bit like a watered-down and tempered version of Arena without those things that make Arena so special or closer still perhaps is Shadowland in which Mike Varty also plays. The lyrical subject-matters, for example, are much more conventional than those of Clive Nolan and revolve mostly around love, (failed) relationships and emotions of loss, etc. Some of the lyrics are rather self-indulgent and naive.

All of the songs performed are good, but very few of them are above good. It is indeed hard to say something very negative about this music, but it is equally hard to be particularly impressed by it. This is clearly above average, but at the same time it is not very far above average. Credo are certainly competent musicians and passionate performers and this is a highly professional release, perfectly filmed and recorded. If traditional British Neo-Prog is your favourite type of music, you probably cannot go wrong with this fine DVD release. But the classic Prog purists should probably avoid this like the plague.

Good, but hardly essential

Share this CREDO review

Social review comments () BETA

---

---

Review related links

• Send comments to SouthSideoftheSky
• Report this review (#296465)
• Buy CREDO music online with PA partners
• Show all CREDO MP3/Stream
• Go to CREDO page for videos, full discography with ratings, reviews and much more
• Go to This Is What We Do - Live in Poland (DVD) page for more details, where to buy and ratings/reviews
• Search the Forum for CREDO related discussions