Monday 24 May 2010

Kayak - Close to the Fire [Single] (2000)

Tracklist:
1. Close to the Fire [radio edit]
2. Close to the Fire [album version]











Extract from the Comeback – 8,5/10

About eighteen years after the breakup of Kayak in 1982 there finally appears a new studio album in store. The title track was chosen to be the first single. I don’t know whether they expected commercial success again, but I doubt this track, though a masterpiece, would’ve made it to the charts.

There are two tracks on this cardsleeve release. “Close to the Fire” and its radio edit. Since the non-edit version easily reaches the 8-minute mark, it’s not an odd decision to release a radio edit as well. First the album version. It starts off very mysteriously with some kind of storm coming up; later on atmospheric synthesizers join the adventure and Max Werner comes in with his unmistakably recognizable voice, making sure we’re listening to Kayak, and not one of Ton Scherpenzeel’s many projects since 1982. After a commanding first verse, everything falls silent and recorders take over to play an epic melody. And then the song has really started with the same cold and mysterious atmosphere that lasts all the way to the powerful chorus. This is progressive rock at its best. The radio edit cuts away the mysterious atmosphere by completely removing the intro and the first verse. We instead begin straight away with the flute melody, accompanied with powerful drums by Pim Koopman. And the length has been reduced to a little over four minutes, which means an incredibly large part has been removed. Ah well, luckily we’ve got the album version too, which really signifies Kayak is back and strong.

All in all, this promises a lot for the comeback album Close to the Fire. I would gladly recommend this single to you, but since it’s pretty rare and expensive you would rather get a copy of the full album instead (if you can even find that one). The radio edit is not that interesting anyway and is just a little goodie for the real collectors.

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