DIVERGENCE

I really love their debut album, but what on earth were they doing here? "Second Line" to my ears sounds like the band ditched all their jazz rock for generic soft rock, complete with vocals that sound like (if it weren't for the accent) it could have been any run-of-the-mill American soft rock act. But then the instrumental part of this piece is next, and it almost sounded like it was spliced from a different band's recording, because it's more in the familiar jazz-rock territory. The title track is familiar to every Focus fan, as they recorded a version of it off their Moving Waves album, as part of the "Eruption" suite, but was entitled "Tommy" there. But Focus actually recorded it first, although Tom Barlage is credited to it, and I'm certain Solution did perform this piece before the album Divergence ever came out (probably around the time of their debut). The next couple pieces are luckily in the jazzy prog department, where the vocals on "Concentration" do work better here, but plenty of instrumental passages. "New Dimension" is another vocal-dominated piece, and again, I really don't care for this piece. To me, this is a rather uneven album, and I've heard some of their later stuff, which sounds too close to lite jazz-rock to my liking. Personally I find their debut the better album.