Nazareth
Exercises

The second album of their career presents Nazareth in the same phase that characterized their debut. In other words, they still haven't quite decided what kind of music they want to make when they grow up, and they explore from right to left, from genre to genre, trying everything and thus resulting in welcoming variety, but also unresolved.

The album fittingly opens with a grand orchestra which, together with just an acoustic guitar, accompanies the singer in an almost ballad titled “Will Not Be Led,” and the jump in genre, atmosphere, and singing style that occurs between this opening and the subsequent “Cat’s Eye, Apple Pie” is disorienting. The latter is a half-dragged, half-late-Beatles acoustic country blues, with harmonica and slide, in an American style.

The work does not take off (from the viewpoint of rock enthusiasts in general and the overall perception/memory that Nazareth evokes in those who have followed them) even with the third contribution “In My Time,” a very British folk piece in three-four time and sung in chorus. But finally, the band's core emerges with the harsh “Woke Up This Morning”: the title is overused, the substance is a hypnotic rock blues, which will be revisited in a more substantial version on their next and more successful album “Razamanaz.”

Scrolling through the tracklist, which is indeed barren of solid rock as will never happen again in these proportions in the group's abundant production, the next highlight is “Madeline,” yet another slow episode, actually very slow and played with relative precision (the bass is truly amateurish), but enhanced with interesting vaguely Pink Floyd-like guitar harmonies by the not-yet-mustachioed Manny Charlton. The next, orchestral “Sad Song,” is indeed unbearable… It is sadder than its title, the melody is worthless, but above all, Dan McCafferty simply lacks the vocal style, spirit, technique, and habit for such niceties.

The best of the bunch ends up being the last, “1692 (Glencoe Massacre),” a reference to a tragic historical episode of 17th century Scotland. Nazareth hails from Dunfermline, not far from Edinburgh once you cross the bridge over the Firth of Forth, so it fits. The episode unfolds on the cadenced, hypnotic rhythm of a moving army band, and it is quite suggestive.

This “Exercises” album is their worst: exercises precisely by a group that had not yet found, if not their originality, at least their specificity. It will finally manifest with the third album “Razamanaz,” but I will skip directly to the seventh, “Close Enough for Rock'n'Roll,” since those in between have all been already reviewed. Au revoir.