Saga
Head or Tales

THE REVIEW

A winning team should not be changed, and for their fifth career album, Saga flew from Toronto to England once again, for the second time handing over the reins to producer Rupert Hine, the craftsman behind their substantial leap in quality and sales, which happened with the previous album "Worlds Apart". This work generally follows the same path, yet it heightens the already apparent musical drift towards broader and less demanding markets.

With an eye toward more classy and trendy productions among those currently at the forefront, supported in this by Hine himself, a deep connoisseur of the British new wave, the band begins to blend their usual progressive, virtuosic, and personal flair with sounds, rhythms, and atmospheres already familiar to many people. For instance, in a couple of tracks, specifically "The Writing" and "Intermission", it feels like listening to Howard Jones or Tom Bailey, the leader of the Thompson Twins, due to a certain vocal resemblance to the Canadian frontman Michael Sadler. Not coincidentally, good old Rupert Hine would go on to produce albums for both Jones and the Twins in the years to come.

Nevertheless, the tracklist still holds a considerable allure for the formation's historical aficionados, those captivated by the dazzling keyboard layers, pyrotechnic counter-time breakdowns, Steve Negus's precise and imaginative rolls on his favored electronic rototoms, and the breathtaking solos of guitarist Ian Chricton, serving as an indispensable seasoning to the band's elegant and richly melodic foundational attitude.

The album promises great things right from the start, with the excellent "I'm the Flyer": tight, powerful, captivating. The single and its music video ruled the young MTV (and consequently Italy's newborn Videomusic, to which I personally owe gratitude for discovering this band).

The electronic sound of the kalimba heralding the thrilling "Catwalk", extensively used throughout the album, can be considered a symbol of the band's stylistic evolution: replacing the thick and mid-range sound of past brass and woodwinds, which carried solemn and progressive riffs, are the new, glassy and brilliant, dynamic and danceable tones of Roland keyboards, so trendy and disengaging. "Catwalk" fades after four minutes, just as a guitar solo is about to start... which originally raged on for a full five minutes, doubling the song's duration! The CD contains both versions, the overly shortened one (chosen for the LP at the time) and the honestly endless one with Chricton, who no longer knows what notes to play... Ideally, as is often the case, the solution would be somewhere in the middle, with the guitar solo fading out after a couple of minutes.

The final track "The Pitchman" proves to be the most satisfying from the perspective of instrumental virtuosity and group technique: in the instrumental section, Steve Negus's formidable rolls lead a series of hyperbolic unison scales, a cherry on top of a track full of drive and inventiveness.

There is no lack of vocal performance from keyboardist Jim Gilmour, who takes Sadler's place to sing the track "Scratching the Surface", which would also perform modestly well as a single and remain the most renowned episode among those he sang, almost constantly appearing in concert setlists.

With their fifth album, loaded with expectations and hopes, more than decent but ultimately inferior to its predecessor, Saga stabilizes and consolidates their rather modest fame (they are now considered the second-best Canadian band, behind only Rush), but they miss the mark of truly breaking through on a large scale, namely in the United States, the market that really counts. The appointment is postponed once again... they hope... alas, it won't be so.