HOW MANY LABELS MAKE FOUR?
Traditionally—and what band is more tradition-minded than these guys?—the Kinks have always done good work when they’ve changed record labels. Muswell Hillbillies was probably their strongest album for RCA, while Sleepwalker, their Arista debut, sounded better than any of its immediate predecessors.
HOW MANY LABELS MAKE FOUR?
THE KINKS Think Visual (MCA)
by
Michael Davis
Traditionally—and what band is more tradition-minded than these guys?—the Kinks have always done good work when they’ve changed record labels. Muswell Hillbillies was probably their strongest album for RCA, while Sleepwalker, their Arista debut, sounded better than any of its immediate predecessors.
So it is with Think Visual, which climbs a couple rungs up the ladder of excellence from recent Arista efforts. Actually, it’s sonically quite similar to Sleepwalker. Ray Davies has put his film concerns in the background and seems to be focusing on writing individual songs, even if he is in a “visual” frame of mind. The band is arranging the material with more thought—and there’s a touch of gloss to the production—so even the so-so songs go down pretty easily.