IMperfect - Flame of Passion

flame

If you want to know why 12 years separates Destiny and IMperfect's second album, Flame Of Passion, you'll need to ask Kahel. But in that time he'd been through some pretty painful personal problems, shifted from New York to San Francisco and then back home to London until an old friend, Mike Romanowski, asked if he wanted to hitch the Caravan back up in San Fran in the summer of 2004. You'll notice that summer's a good time for Kahel to be recording.

Dragging a couple of players across the Atlantic with him, one of whom wasn't going to see the week through in the band, a larger ensemble of players gathered to record an album that was to be made to feel as if it was being played in a San Fransican jazz bar. That explains the compere who introduces the band during Ever Onward. Now might be a good time to note that a track entitled Ever Onward has opened both IMperfect recordings. A sign perhaps? Most definitely.

Flame's a much more upbeat album in both tempo and theme than its predecessor, a result perhaps of the full band, but perhaps also of lessons enforced by life. Certainly there are more songs from Flame in the current IMperfect live set. Two of these songs: Beautiful Day and Gotta Feeling, the latter even dropping in a subtle reggae beat, are unashamed arse-shakers, power pop stompers that leave you with a smile on the face and a beat in the heart. Still On The Farm weaves Mariachi punk whilst Kahel's son, Wrekonize, MCs in a manner reminiscent of R.E.M.'s Radio Song. You'd be hard pressed to work out that these 13 tracks came together in a week.

Elsewhere The Power makes a re-appearance with a new jazzier arrangement than on Destiny, surrounded by heavy smoke and women in high strapped heels and low cut tops, Hope, even more so. How Can I, Shades Of Grey and Everybody Deserves are gentle protest songs calling for humanity, fairness and an equal chance for all, ultimately the banner that waves over the head of the Caravan. It's only Lonely Man that sits apart from the pack, a dark tale of isolation, written whilst Kahel was shipwrecked in New York, not an easy city to be alone in. The eerie solitude of the track (reprised at the end of the album) rings long after the CD has stopped spinning.

The Scribe