On the 18th May, 2000, Rick Wakeman turned 51 but you'll certainly not notice it where finger speed is concerned. From the time Wakeman went to live on the Isle of Man, sadly most of his albums sound alike, which mainly has to do with his use of Korg and Kurzweil keyboards and the drum programming of Stuart Sawney. From the first note of "Fanfare," the album Themes sounds very Wakeman-ish, yet the interesting flavour that he added to his music in the seventies seems to have gone. The Wakeman trademark now has to be found in the simple, pure classical pieces like "Nothing Left To Say" which he plays on piano only and still holds all of the Wakeman characteristics, a little bit in the style of "After The Ball." Yet Rick wouldn't be Rick if he wouldn't offer us many different styles on one single album. So we get "Latin Cycle" which is the kind of muzak you might end up hearing in a shopping mall. This is by all means very different from the previous track. "Ambient Loop" is a very contemporary song where a repetitive "loop" is accompanied by nice guitar parts. At last the well-known Moog sounds come to us in the uptempo "Section Seven." Rick is at his best during the acoustic passages where he can also introduce some bombastic orchestral splendour such as in "Hall Of Fame." Ordinary pop and the still unconvincing voice of Chrissie Hammond (probably given free with the purchase of an organ of the same name!) typecast "On Our Way." Then again "Forever And Ever" is the kind of music you'd wish to find all over this album: bombastic, classical, majestic with little means. The album ends with the long "Freefall" that has the drum machine take away all the class of the song. A real drummer would certainly improve the end result of Themes. However this album once again illustrates the many talents of Rick Wakeman and those of guitarist Fraser Thorneycroft-Smith. Themes could well be seen as the Rhapsodies of the end of the century. Reviewed by : John 'Bobo' Bollenberg |
