Charlie was a London-based rock band who released albums in the late 70’s and early 80’s and gained some success as well. Kitchens of Distinction was originally supposed to be a slo album by the singer Terry Thomas but since also old Charlie members Julian Colbeck (keyboards) and Martin Smith (slide guitar) took part in the project Thomas decided to release the album as Charlie. Colbeck’s and Smith’s involvement is rather modest, anyway. Thomas also plays most of the guitar, bass and keyboard parst by himself but there are also other musicians joining in and all the drums were played by Steve Alexander. Thomas has written all the songs and he has also produced and mixed the album and made a great job. The basic overtone of the music still is melodic hard rock and AOR but Thomas has updated his style quite nicely to fit modern day requirements with for example some heavier guitar sounds. Good examples of this are the first, hard rocking track “Get a Life” that could easily be the latest hit by some fresh, heavier alternative rock band as well as the metallic ”Alcohol” and ”Blue Sky Bullshit” that bring to mind Ozzy Osbourne’s recent output. For example “Cars” presents more pop-like side of the album. I think that Thomas can be completely happy with his achievement since this does sound good enough, although it’s not exactly to my taste.
Charlie was a London-based rock band who released albums in the late 70’s and early 80’s and gained some success as well. Kitchens of Distinction was originally supposed to be a slo album by the singer Terry Thomas but since also old Charlie members Julian Colbeck (keyboards) and Martin Smith (slide guitar) took part in the project Thomas decided to release the album as Charlie. Colbeck’s and Smith’s involvement is rather modest, anyway. Thomas also plays most of the guitar, bass and keyboard parst by himself but there are also other musicians joining in and all the drums were played by Steve Alexander. Thomas has written all the songs and he has also produced and mixed the album and made a great job. The basic overtone of the music still is melodic hard rock and AOR but Thomas has updated his style quite nicely to fit modern day requirements with for example some heavier guitar sounds. Good examples of this are the first, hard rocking track “Get a Life” that could easily be the latest hit by some fresh, heavier alternative rock band as well as the metallic ”Alcohol” and ”Blue Sky Bullshit” that bring to mind Ozzy Osbourne’s recent output. For example “Cars” presents more pop-like side of the album. I think that Thomas can be completely happy with his achievement since this does sound good enough, although it’s not exactly to my taste.
