PRODUCT

When you play in a jazz rock band and your drummer is Phil Collins it may be a good idea to leave the singing to one side. Unfortunately guitarist John Goodsall and company took their eyes of the ball and allowed their more prominent drummer to srtetch his vocal chords. On first listen Product sounds an awful mess. The band have morphed into a generic song orientated act, the band have slipped into safe generic Brand X act and the band have taken on an new messy adventurous role.Yrs, all the same band, Brand X. All these strands only complicate the whole message Brand X were trying to get across, if they even had a message. It would look as if the band had run its course, and by the end of the 1970s all such acts were out to pasture. The songs with lyrics are not terrible but why the need for them now? When listening to the second track it comes a little more clear. "Dance of the Illegal Aliens" sounds like a track heard so many times before only now getting dull and old. The vocal exercise and dull musical romp of "Don't Make Waves" would have been best advice heeded by the band, and even too well heede at other points to add to the confusion! And while they do throw up some magic with the cool "Rhesus Perplexus"and the basstastic "Wal to Wal" much of the album is a mes of too many cooks, but bass players Percy Jones and John Giblin do an admirable job of adding a depth of humour and show of transendent skill to the whole packed of this expanded Brand X Product.