There are so many bands out there with the name Life, it's near impossible to keep up. I thought I'd heard them all, but MM had sent this one in this past Spring, and it was one Life that had escaped me.
Side 1 is pretty much all good times rock n' roll with honky tonk piano and party-time themes. But even on these tracks, Life throws in some sophisticated organ breaks and even a little flute. Side 2 dumps the easy life, and focuses more on their serious side. Here, Life demonstrates a strong early Uriah Heep influence. Organ dominates the sound, and there's quite a bit more thought injected into these compositions. Tough album to evaluate. I could go Priority 3 based on Side 2, but probably will keep at None, as the first side is pretty weak IMO.
There's a newly pressed CD out there that just arrived on the market, but honestly it looks dubious to me. I'm more than willing to be proven wrong. Just send me the hard data.
Priority: none
3 comments:
Strange to see this record mentioned. I thought of it as long forgotten. I just got an original two months ago on a trade from a friend. A very enjoyable second side but as a whole it is rather forgettable.
Had this album on cassette for years. It was a big letdown when I finally did hear it but it's kind of grown on me. Well, the opening and closing suites did, the stuff in the middle is awfully mainstream (especially "Highway," which seems to go on forever and never does anything other than a good-timey mainstream bluesy rock thing).
I'd say this is pretty borderline stuff: light, proggy, proto-AOR rock, probably comparable to Argent or A Band Called "O". Or maybe a British answer to Head East (thanks to the emphasis on keyboard playing).
Cool cover art, incidentally. This was produced by Chris White of the Zombies (which I guess explains the Argent similarity). Keyboardist Ian Gibbons later played with the Kinks.
Thanks Mike and Spyros for the comments!
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