mail: daniel_fjall@hotmail.com
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first impressions loving power
First Impressions Curtis Mayfield once a member of The Impressions. This album, First Impressions, is the groups first after Mayfield’s departure. The fans, the critics and basically everybody in the business did not expect them to make any greater shakes, as they in the past had be extremely dependent of Curtis. Their lead singer, arranger and songwriter had left them for the wind. However, the remaining members manages to get their act together and actually delivers a very good album. A soul album that recalls Barry White(!), The Temptations and even The Beach Boys in places. Whilst the songwriting is top-notch on a melodic level, it is not quite as impressive on a lyrical level. Coming from the church originally, the band tends to be a little preachy once in a while. They don’t preach about religion, though. Good love and bad love, happy relationships and bad relationships is the various subjects the lyrics deals with. Often presented in an incredibly naive and simple way, but once you get used to it and don’t expect any poetic wonders, you should be all right. Just go with the flow, excellent vocals and the rhythm. Despite the narrowed lyrics, the album is quite diverse, ranging from pure rootsoul (“Same Thing It Took”, “I’m So Glad”), more contemporary disco music (“Sooner Or Later”) and some blues inspired tracks (“Old Before My Time”, which blends in some reggae-ish bass riffs). Generally the songs starts slow with a spoken verse, which gets a little annoying, but the songs slowly builds up into frenetic, nearly religious experiences as they move on. And when they got the speed up, they ain’t slowin’ down.
Loving Power It is pretty depressing to see a band fall so hard. Some people you start kicking as soon as they hit the ground, other people you leave alone since they are not able to evoke any particular emotions. Loving Power is so utterly bad I’m not sure if I’m gonna kick the band, because they’re undoubtedly lying on the ground, or just turn my head and walk by. Lacking everything First Impressions had, Loving Power is boring, generic and so unchallenging it is sad, combing the worst moments of The Bee Gees and Chicago isn’t exactly a good idea. It would have been passable if it only was one song or two, but now we are talking about all seven songs. Only seven songs, which is pretty comforting. Too bad they are all overlong, dripping of melted cheese. A couple of members had left the band, and it is easy to understand why. There’s no steam left, it’s just clean and dull. I think I have done enough kicking now. Stay away.
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