Opening with a lone harmonica, this signaled the advent of
\ncommercial-era Supertramp, an era which would result in three great
\nalbums and two mediocre ones.<\/p>\n
I would venture to say this is the band’s best album, mainly
\nbecause it’s strong throughout while retaining the Supertramp feel.
\nIt’s darker than
\nBreakfast In America<\/i> and poppier than
\nEven In The Quietest Moments<\/i>, and far better than
\nCrisis? What Crisis?<\/i><\/p>\n
Why? The band knows how to build up tension, not just with the
\ninstrumental passages but with the lighter pop tunes as well. There
\nis a definite mood in the beginning of “School,” which explodes
\ninto the rock part of the track, which then gives way to a piano
\nsolo that Billy Joel would have paid for.<\/p>\n
This gives way to “Bloody Well Right,” with a playful piano
\nintro and Roger Hodgson doing his best David Gilmour singing voice
\nover the verse (Gilmour returned the favor by playing guitar on
\n“Brother Where You Bound” in 1985). The horns lend a bit of flavor
\nto the song, but it mostly gets by on guitar crunch and
\nattitude.<\/p>\n
“Hide In Your Shell” is a slower piece that builds up to a more
\npowerful climax three times, altering the ending a little each
\ntime, while “Asylum” is the only forgettable song here, not really
\npicking up steam until the end with some annoying yelping over a
\nstop-start rock passage.<\/p>\n
“Dreamer” was the biggest hit here (in 1980, six years later), a
\nshort but sprightly piano-driven piece that — like most of the
\nsongs here — starts simply and builds in intensity, adding
\ninstruments until the explosive finale and, finally, a lone
\nxylophone fading off in the distance. It’s the song that exposed
\nthe band to America, and rightly so.<\/p>\n
The second side is a lot more progressive than the first, with
\nthe 7-minute “Rudy” acting as a melding of Queen and Jethro Tull
\nand an Elton John-like piano piece called “If Everyone Was
\nListening” that would have fit well on
\nGoodbye Yellow Brick Road<\/i>. But the centerpiece of the album
\nis the title track, which starts with a short and unsettling rock
\nsong before moving into the coda, a three-minute piano\/guitar\/sax
\nduel that is among the most passionate ever put onto a rock
\nrecord.<\/p>\n
Six of these eight songs made it on the band’s
\nVery Best Of<\/i>, which should say it all. This is Supertramp’s
\nbest album and a high point of the progressive-pop subcategory, but
\nit’s also a testament to the emotion prog-rock bands were often
\naccused of lacking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":27133,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6166],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-38471","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-supertramp","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38471"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}