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Review title: A little contrived
Product review: Overall it's really well played, what less could you expect from masters like Christian McBride or Ray Parker Jr.? Also, needless to say, Crawford's voice is technically perfect and Sample's keyboards soulful as ever. But, apart from a few songs like "sea line woman" or "last night at danceland" the end result is somehow deficient in terms of inspiration. Generally, I'm afraid, the album sounds a little contrived, reminding me of "Morph the Cat" by Donald Fagen, in the sense that it tries to hard and ultimately fails to recreate the magic of the early albums. I find the Crusaders' albums lovely not for their musical virtuosity but, rather, for their unbeatable charm, a quality that seems to be lacking here. Who knows, maybe it's that the plasticized 00's fail to provide the right mood.P.s. Thinking again about it, it probably deserves 3 stars but unfortunately I can't go back and edit my rating.
