MUSIC MAGIC

If this album was released by just about any other fusion band, I presume it would be rated much higher. It actually contains some very nice music. But we have come to expect more from some bands. So when a group like Return To Forever, or The Mahavishnu Orchestra releases an album that isn't up to their usual standards, we tend to rate it down.

The main problem are the vocals. Gayle Moran and Stanley Clarke are not bad vocalists, but the lyrics they are singing here tend to pull the music down, especially on The Endless Night, an otherwise great song, that it seems was being turned into a theme song for the band. And Hello Again comes off more as a pop song, than fusion, and doesn't really succeed as either.

Along with the above mentioned The Endless Night, The Musician and So Long Mickey Mouse also have some good musicianship in them. But if you want to here better versions of songs from this album, get the double CD live set from 1977.