(Review from amazon)

One of Kayak’s typical hallmarks was that they managed a good balance between 70′s pop sounds and progressive elements. “The last encore” from 1976 is the last one with Pim Koopman on drums. It’s also a special one because it contains an unusual large amount of Pim’s songs. Although main Kayak composer Ton Scherpenzeel and Pim are quite different songwriters, their songs integrate very nicely on this album.

Opening song “Back to the Front”, immediately sets the mood for this album. Here the listener is captivated by a stocato 2 fingered piano fill, and a soft whistle, and a varied assortment of keyboards, percussions (listen for a soft miramba) and both electric and acoustic guitars. It is this type of musicianship that makes each song on this album so unique. Keyboardist, vocalist, and principal songwriter Ton Scherpenzeel is a master of adding the unexplained to each song. Layering their songs with rich, overdubbed, and orchestral imagery. Take “Nothingness”, for example, for what may be random, we hear what seems to be Bendatictine Monks Choir adding a lush vocal arpeggio of fluctating high to low choral additions. But what makes it work, is that I can’t imagine the song without having that interlude in this particular song. And so it goes throughout. Instruments as varied as the accordion, clavinet, mellatron, zither, recorder and a marimba, that one wouldn’t generally hear being used, in these songs to not have them, the song wouldn’t be complete.

“Relics From a Distant Age” features piano mastery, with the soft sounds of a clavinet and a bass line by Johah Slager, this is as good as it gets. The sounds of birds open “Love Me Tonight/Get on Board” and at the same time you hear what sounds like an old victrola playing a old time vocal arrangement. Then suddenly you hear the band in the fashion of a 1920s carnival group. After a short interlude of silence, the songs starts up again, and the victrola sounds up again, and you can imagine yourself sitting on the open porch of a vintage Victorian Mansion on a warm summer evening.

After “Last Encore”, Pim Koopman decided to leave the band. This was due to health problems/stage fright, but it also helped that he was offered a job as a full-time producer. As a producer he was quite successful with Dutch artists.

Line-up:
- Pim Koopman / drums, percussion, piano, backing vocals
- Ton Scherpenzeel / keyboards, mellotron, accordion, double bass, backing vocals
- Johan Slager / guitars, backing vocals
- Bert Veldkamp / bass, double bass, saxophone, zither, backing vocals
- Max Werneer / lead & backing vocals, percussion, mellotrons

Track List:
01. Back to the Front (4:31)
02. Nothingness (3:57)
03. Love Of A Victim (2:50)
04. Land On The Water (2:27)
05. The Last Encore (3:59)
06. Do You Care (2:49)
07. Still My Heart Cries For You (4:32)
08. Relics from a Distant Age (4:54)
09. Love me tonight / Get On Board (2:40)
10. Evocation (3:50)
11. Raid Your Own House (3:35)
12. Well Done (0:52)

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