Release date: January 31, 2019
Label: In And Out Of Focus Records
Production: Geert Scheijgrond, Thijs Van Leer and Udo Pannekeet
Length: 52:41
Genre: progressive rock
Rating: 7/10
The long-lived Dutch prog veterans Focus are back with their eleventh studio album, simply called “Focus 11,” which contains exactly eleven tracks. The cover, showing a stylized cathedral with pointed spires, was done by the cult prog-rock cover artist Roger Dean. Dean’s artwork strongly recalls some of his older pieces, going all the way back to the seventies. That ambient, ‘retro’ seventies flavor runs through the lion’s share of the tracks on “Focus 11” too, except that most of the material has a somewhat more obvious jazzy stamp than we’re used to from them.
Anyone who enjoyed the previous three Focus albums will be happy with “Focus 11” too, which is almost entirely instrumental. The vocals of the band’s chief, the tireless flutist and Hammond organ master Thijs Van Leer, show up on just one track, while his yodeling is completely absent this time around. Guitarist Menno Gootjes is a supremely successful imitator of the guitar style of his famous predecessor Jan Akkerman, and together with Van Leer’s organ and flute and the jazzy flourishes of longtime drummer Pierre Van Der Linden, he’s the one most responsible for giving the lion’s share of the album’s compositions that seventies ambient feel.
Sadly, Focus didn’t bring the same fire to the songwriting on most of “Focus 11” as they did to the practically flawless playing. Like the material on the previous three albums, the compositions don’t reach the level of their golden days, though it’s far from the case that any track is outright bad — dull is more like it. The second half of the album is a bit more interesting, mostly thanks to the closing numbers like “Mare Nostrum” and “Focus 11.” Don’t go looking for any ambitious prog epics on “Focus 11.” The band also likes to retreat into light, melodic jazz rock for a good chunk of the album, which in its technical polish even edges a bit toward Steely Dan at times, but without the depth and sophistication.
You can tell that compositional inspiration wasn’t one of the virtues of “Focus 11” right from the opening track “Who’s Calling?” It’s merely a reworked and heavily shortened version of the longer composition of the same name that Van Leer and Akkerman recorded for their joint album “Focus” in 1985. The tracks “Winnie” and “Clair-Obscur” had already appeared on the previous release too, “The Focus Family Album” (2017), which speaks volumes about the considerable songwriting laziness of this cult band from the land of tulips and windmills.
If you actively follow modern-day Focus and were happy with their previous three studio efforts, you’ll find plenty to enjoy on “Focus 11.” Those who prize Focus most for their classic albums like “Moving Waves (1971),” “Focus III (1973)” and “Hamburger Concerto” (1974), though, will be pretty underwhelmed by what they hear. The album is ambient and pretty, and good enough to work as background music for boring midday chores, but it doesn’t leave any deeper impression. A serious lack of compositional inspiration is the main reason why “Focus 11” as a whole is still a long way from the ‘good old days.’
Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Track list:
1. Who’s Calling? (5:27)
2. Heaven (4:26)
3. Theodora Na Na Na (4:27)
4. How Many Miles? (4:48)
5. Mazzel (4:23)
6. Winnie (5:13)
7. Palindrome (5:33)
8. Clair-Obscur (3:14)
9. Mare Nostrum (5:08)
10. Final Analysis (3:51)
11. Focus 11 (6:11)
Focus:
Thijs van Leer – Hammond organ, flute, vocoder, vocals
Menno Gootjes – guitar
Udo Pannekeet – bass guitar
Pierre Van Der Linden – drums, percussion
