Search - Freddie King :: Larger Than Life

Not A Burglar Revisited

12/07/2003

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Although it's great that Freddie's very last album has finally been put out on CD, it will hardly be to everyone's taste. While its predecessor "Burglar" was and still is a brilliant album on which funk, blues and rock merged easily, "Larger Than Life" is too disjointed to come close to the quality of that one. This album has its moments though. Several tunes were pulled from a Freddie concert at the armadillo headquarters in Texas, and 'Meet Me in The Morning' and especially the funkfilled nutcracker 'You Can Run But You Can't Hide' are fabulous. The studio-cuts are scarce and ambivalent. While 'It's Better To Have' is nice, doowop-ish blues, and 'Your Move' obviously is the grooviest and best studio-take on here, things get ugly with the devastatingly droll 'Boogie Bump', a hideous attempt at reconciling blues with disco, complete with chirping backing vocals, dull lyrics and worst of all: Freddie's sharp axe is tuned down here! All in all, for Freddie King fans, this CD is a must. For pure blueslovers, it is not. The live side makes up for the one or two bad studio tracks (Boogie Bump.........). The cover is a exact replica of the original LP, and the liner notes by Thomas Russell are fantastic!"