Consumer Guide Album

Return to Forever: Romantic Warrior [Columbia, 1976]
Right on schedule, two or three years behind John McLaughlin, Chick Corea tries to eat the fusion cyclotron. Where McLaughlin fell for a few silly orchestral trappings, Corea essays pompous, ersatz-classical compositions--while continuing to display Al DiMeola, Stanley Clarke, and Lenny White in all their dazzling vacuity. Jazz-rock's answer to Emerson, Lake & Palmer--the worst of both worlds. D+