Saga
The Human Condition

Mmmh… feelings of partial disagreement accompany the listening of this nineteenth work by the Canadians Saga, dated 2009, the only one without the contribution of the historical frontman Michael Sadler who took a couple of sabbatical years to dedicate himself to the family. According to him, it should have been a proper retirement from the scene… fortunately, he reconsidered, resulting in a couple more albums, twentieth and twenty-first, with the excellent Michael firmly back in his place behind the microphone, as well as occasionally hammering some keyboards.

His substitute for the occasion, the fairly well-known Rob Moratti from a lesser-known Canadian band, wouldn't be bad: he has a voice, sonorous and powerful, but it's not very flexible, not so expressive, with zero irony and dynamics and theatricality… a chasm away from the perhaps less dense and full-bodied and extensive, but infinitely more artistic and communicative emission of the veteran Sadler; so firm and not very ductile, this voice reminds a lot of James LaBrie of Dream Theater, contributing to drag Saga's music towards a cold and technical Progressive Metal drift from which they had always kept their distance, despite the copious virtuoso skills of at least three of the quintet's members (guitarist, keyboardist and drummer).

Explanatory in this regard is the eponymous debut track, an almost instrumental (Moratti sings here and there only a single phrase of five words) that serves the group to perform a muscular and paroxysmal run in unison up and down the keyboards of the instruments, in the spectacular but gratuitous and cloying manner of Petrucci and Rudess. The disappointment only partly fades with the arrival of the second contribution "Step Inside", weighed down by heavy metal riffs not suitable for the elegance and swing of Saga, but at least with a nice and rounded chorus melody.

The best of the album is in track number five "A Number With A Name" whose approach causes a little hitch in the hearts of Progressive aficionados, by virtue of an electric guitar/piano counterpoint with a strong Gentle Giant aroma. The rhythmic interlocking traverses the verses and cyclically manages to give a brilliant and pleasant breath to the song. Traces of Gentle Giant, albeit more subtle, are also in the closing piece "You Look Good To Me", both for the guitar riff that recalls an episode of "The Power And The Glory", an old great album by the British sextet, and for the electric piano ending by the always brilliant keyboardist Jim Gilmour.

Just a barely sufficient album in my opinion… mind you, by Saga's stratospheric standards! Still, in my view.