Considering his status as one of the U.K.'s greatest, and most prolific, songwriters, Graham Gouldman has stepped out alone on surprisingly few occasions -- two solo albums three decades apart, and one full-length movie soundtrack that, though it features several songs to rate alongside any of his late '70s-and-onward output, he tends to dismiss as just that, a custom-written movie soundtrack that has no bearing on the remainder of his output. Recorded during the awkward period that followed 10cc bandmate Eric Stewart's hospitalization following a car accident, during which neither 10cc (the drab Look Hear? album) nor Stewart himself (the Girls LP) were firing at anything near full-strength, Animalympics is, nevertheless, a latter-day 10cc album in all but name and numbers. The accompanying musicians include band regulars Paul Burgess, Rick Fenn, Stuart Tosh, and Duncan Mackay, together with longtime associate Mike Timony, while the musical mood is certainly cut in a similar mold to the best of the parent band's recent output. The playful funk squelching of the opening Go for It, the chiming rock guitars of Underwater Fantasy, the dreamy Parisian balladics of Love's Not for Me, and the pulsating jungle chant Kit Mambo are all well-crafted evidence of Gouldman's versatility and, if Animalympics has any lasting flaw, it's one that it shares which so many albums of the early '80s -- a production (by Gouldman again) so locked in time and space that you could set your watch by it. But that is a small price to pay for a full album's worth of classic Graham Gouldman, and whether you have fond memories of the accompanying movie or not, Animalympics is an album you cannot afford to be without. ~ Dave Thompson, Rovi

1		Go for It
2		Underwater Fantasy
3		Away from It All
4		Born to Lose
5		Kit Mambo
6		Z.O.O.
7		Love's Not for Me
8		With You I Can Run Forever
9		Bionic Boar
10		We've Made It to the Top

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