High Inergy - Frenzy (1979)

High Inergy was a group that didn't live up to its potential; not commercially, not creatively. One could hear a lot of potential on the group's promising debut album of 1977, Turnin' On. But regrettably, High Inergy only had one major hit -- "You Can't Turn Me Off (In the Middle of Turning Me On)" -- and was saddled with a lot of mediocre, pedestrian material after 1978. Released in 1979, the Californians' fourth album, Frenzy, turned out to be both a creative and an artistic disappointment. This isn't a terrible record, but it was hardly the gem that High Inergy was desperately in need of. A few of the tunes are memorable, including the passionate "Main Ingredient" and the Diana Ross-influenced "Time of Your Life." But most of the time, they are given inferior material to work with and are stuck with producers who don't do them justice. Is Frenzy a total disaster? No, parts of it are likable, but it is unfocused, and High Inergy was capable of so much more.