pier_paolo_farina

I think I will stick to about twenty studio albums. No live recordings and no compilations. Courage.

Thanks for the support, Roby; you’re a true classic rock enthusiast. I'm passing along my ratings for the entire Saga discography (except for the latest, The Human Condition, which I haven't listened to yet), just to add a bit to this sparse string of comments on their eighth album: Saga ****, Images at Twilight ****, Silent Knight ****, Worlds Apart *****, Head or Tales ****, Behaviour *****, Wildest Dreams ***, The Beginner's Guide to Throwing Shapes ***, The Security of Illusion *****, Steel Umbrellas ***, Generation 13 ****, Pleasure and the Pain **, Full Circle ***, House of Cards ***, Marathon ***, Network ****, Trust ***, 10,000 Days ****. Best regards.

Cicciobello: Trust (an album by Saga from 2006) has been reviewed for four years already.

Thank you for your appreciation, Fede. For you, who adores Rush, Saga should be just around the corner... but maybe you love the 70s Rush, the progressive and screaming ones, not the sophisticated and keyboard-driven 80s ones (like me). Give a last shot at Saga’s more recent, harder rock, and more guitar-focused albums: I recommend 10,000 Days (2008), Network (2003), or even the older The Security of Illusion (1993). Generation 13 gives me that kind of boredom typical of concept albums, when they sacrifice instrumental cohesion for the needs of the story. I have the same issue with Tommy and Quadrophenia, The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, and many others.

I don’t know the Prism Roberto, except by name... for some reason they have always slipped away from me. I will consider your suggestion. Even if my "AOR and derivatives" season has long passed... I now struggle to get excited about some meteors and some outsiders of eighties melodic rock and its nineties offshoots. As I age, my classic rock taste has returned to where it started: rock blues, Zeppelin...

Mmmh, I decided to give four stars to the first three albums by Saga, as a devoted fan, I hope you won’t mind my personal tastes. Refining the preferences on the trio in question, unlike you, I place this album in pole position, then the first, and finally the third. But these are three very compact releases, close in time (eight songs each, four per side of the LP, same cover style, definitely same recording studio), remarkably similar in sound and consistency, in my view. It's curious that they remain so stylistically similar with three different keyboardists! Always thinking differently from Fede, I invite him to (re)listen to, in addition to the classic "Worlds Apart," also "Behaviour" and "The Security of Illusion," which in my opinion are the "five stars" of the band (and perhaps also "10,000 Days"). Greetings to you.

@Roberto: true to the original by Asia, intuitively put together in no time, without inventing the typical, convoluted guitar/keyboard duels that are a trademark of the Canadians. A friendly tribute to the illustrious Wetton, I think, but also a useful "hook" to increase the appeal of those concerts, being such a famous song (fame usurped, in my opinion).

A greeting and thanks to you too, Fates. I had the pleasure of attending one of their concerts in Zurich about ten years ago. John Wetton opened for them, solo with an acoustic guitar. When it came time for the second encore from Saga, the good John dashed back out, took to the microphone, and the five Saga members accompanied him flawlessly in an inevitable and electric "Heat Of The Moment," oh yes.

Hi Roby, great post. As you know very well, the Saga mature with the fourth album, which I plan to review soon. Take care.

Best progressive group with a violin, in my opinion: High Tide, of course with that little devil Simon House (later with Hawkwind, and for a time in Bowie’s court) who kept them far from gentle prog and instead very close to hell. Curved Air looked incredibly interesting on paper, bringing together a virtuosic and Paganini-esque violinist (Way) with a frontwoman of suitable physique du rôle (Krjstina) and an early synthesizer experimenter (Francis Monkman). Instead, I’ve always remained lukewarm: due to the songwriting lacking any groundbreaking moments (except for "Vivaldi") and Sonja's voice, certainly not memorable. Curiosity (completely unimportant): Krjstina is the wife of Stewart Copeland, drummer and founder of the Police, who joined Curved Air in the later part of their career.