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Alquin - Blue Planet

Artist: Alquin
Title: Blue Planet
Label: Hunter Music 771617-2
Length(s): 65 minutes
Year(s) of release: 2005
Month of review: [03/2006]

Line up

Ferdinand Bakker - guitars, violin, piano, vocals
Michel van Dijk - lead vocals
Dick Franssen - hammond, keyboards
Ronald Ottenhoff - saxes
Walter Latuperissa - bass, vocals
Job Tarenskeen - drums, vocals

Tracks

1) Return To The Blue Planet 6.01
2) Murder In The Park 4.43
3) Over & Out 5.53
4) The Hitman 3.21
5) Falling 4.39
6) Love = A Little Thing 2.10
7) Terror Eyes 6.18
8) 2 Days 2 Nights 3.48
9) Pictures 4.14
10) Can't Sleep 3.08
11) Enough = Enough 3.43
12) Singapore Connection 5.09
13) Cherise 5.43
14) The Beach 5.54

Summary

The music

The little get together Alquin did on a stage a couple of years worked out pretty well: it has led to the release of this new studio album nigh on thirty years after the previous one. Where a lot of let's-get-together-again-and-make-another-record efforts over the past years have shown a shift from bands towards a more bluesy, bland type style, Alquin have stuck to their original style: a strong rock basis with influences from pop, prog and jazz.

This mingling of styles and influences has always made for albums with enough variation. The same goes for this album. There are your basic poprock tracks, such as Over & Out and 2 Days 2 Nights, the sort of Alquin tracks I've never cared much for. But: the warm sounding organ (with lesley, not something you hear very often nowadays) in the former does soften the plain effect, as does the lingering guitar in the middle. The Hitman is a track with a ballad like atmosphere, with lingering sax and guitars, an atmosphere repeated in The Beach, arguably the best tracks of this album. Murder In The Park fits in this category too, albeit it a little less strikingly so. Love = A Little Thing is a deer short ballad. Terror Eyes opens mostly rocky, but slowly develops more feel and warmth, with a nice husky sax solo in the middle.

What I feel where this album differs most with previous ones is that the band have managed to make a step forward in creating a degree of warmth without losing the freshness. This takes the edge of the more rocky cuts.

Conclusion

Okay, I guess there's not another Wheelchair Groupie or New Guinea Sunrise on disc, although The Hitman and The Beach take pretty decent pokes at those tracks. But this has turned out the most consistent and balanced album in the band's history. And that leads to this being the best album they have produced.

© Roberto Lambooy