Peter Frampton - Fram CDs • Vinyl Records • LPs • Music Albums

Me the Way" and "Do You Feel like We Do," the vocals are forceful, the harmonies balanced and the ensemble playing well-rehearsed.

Although Frampton has been stereotyped a hard rocker, the introspective side two is largely acoustic. This album also reveals other facets of Frampton's musicianship that his studio efforts have obscured. Second guitarist Bob Mayo provides a rich, dense middle texture, and working with him, Frampton demonstrates his excellence as a rhythm guitarist, a rare thing among lead players. Echo has always been a key factor in his sound and Frampton here manages to combine Leslie speakers, a compressor and augmented echo onstage without losing any presence. But what really makes his lead playing distinctive is his intuitive melodic sense, the economy of his solos and his elegant, quasi-jazz phrasing.

Although Frampton has included most of his best material, numbers like "I Wanna Go to the Sun" and "(I'll Give You) Money" run dangerously close to heavy-metal redundancy. The adapted "Jumping Jack Flash," like several other previously recorded songs, hasn't really evolved beyond the original Frampton version, and "Do You Feel like We Do," which invariably gets the live crowd crazy, runs on far too long here. Overall, however, this album is Frampton's most coherent, exciting and accessible. Frampton Comes Alive is more than a summation of his solo career; it's also a synthesis of the best third-generation British rock styles. As the genre's brightest light, it will be interesting to see where he takes it from here. (RS 208)

JEAN-CHARLES COSTA