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Loosing
your fans is easy, gaining them back is much harder, and that’s what
Saga is experiencing during the last years. The fans of the early Saga
(the first 5 studio albums) are hard to convince that Saga is back. If
you give their last 3 albums some time, you’ll discover that they are.
The career of Saga can be divided into three parts. First, there’s their
best period with the first albums (“Saga”, “Images At Twilight”, “Silent
Knight”, “Worlds Apart” and “Heads Or Tales”). During the second period,
they recorded some CD’s of a minor quality and there was a partial split
of the band. Dark times, with a rare highlight.
I
like “The Security of Illusion” a bit more than the rest and off course
there’s “Generation 13”, considered by many as their masterpiece.
But from “Full
Circle” on, they’ve put themselves back on the right track.
When
I saw them live on the “Marathon” tour, they were playing three songs
from their new album (“Marathon”, “How Are You?” and “Worlds Apart
(Chapter 16)”) and they sounded as good as the rest of the setlist.
A few
highlights of the album:
“Marathon” is a very good catchy Saga track as in their better days,
with a long guitar solo, which was one of the elements that was lacking
on their previous albums.
“How are you?” is again a real Saga song, carried by Steve’s drums.
Steve is one of the main ingredients of the Saga sound with
his steady, tight, half electronic, half acoustic drum sound.
The
middle part of this song contains a few stops to give the vocals a solo
moment, followed by a long, typical “Ian Crighton” guitar solo and a
typical “Jim Gilmour” keyboard intervention.
”You Know I Know (Chapter 12)” even brings back memories of “Wind Him
Up”.
The
best track of the album is without any doubt the final track “Worlds
Apart (Chapter 16)”, a song that has two totally different parts, a
quiet piece with a flute sound and a heavier chorus. It contains one the
best guitar solos I heard from them.
“Breathing lessons” is a slow, quiet track with a good sound and some
emotional vocals but there’s nothing happening. “Blind Side Of The
Heart” is a better ballad, with some more variation. The rest of the
album is also above average.
Saga hasn’t
lost their energy. Michael is still singing as twenty years ago and is
still jumping around on stage as a young bloke.
It’s hard to please fans that carry your earlier work in their heart for
twenty years. But put all your prejudices in a drawer and give them a
chance. They deserve it.
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