Supertramp
Free as a Bird

THE REVIEW

This is where a trio of themed reviews begins, hopefully brief because the three final contributions to the Supertramp discography are certainly more than decent and enjoyable, yet simultaneously unsatisfying when compared to their previous works, so it's better not to dwell too much on it.

The Supertramp have released eleven studio albums, which can be divided into three phases:

_The beginnings, the apprenticeship: two smooth albums but without flashes of genius, 1970 and 1971

_The achievement of their own style, and success: five splendid albums, two of them masterpieces, from 1974 to 1982

_The decline, survival: four respectable but essentially overlookable albums, from 1984 to 2002

The second work of this last phase is right here: it's 1987 and singer and pianist Rick Davies has been alone at the helm of operations for some years, following the departure of his alter ego Roger Hodgson (guitar and piano). However, it's not just the fruitful alternation between the two different voices, the two different styles of the aforementioned that are missing here... it's just that the inspiration is weak, the ideas diluted. There is pleasantness, entertainment but nothing epochal in episodes like the initial "It's Alright", almost a mazurka, lively but not very memorable.

Better then is "Not the Moment" which has its own small solemnity in the long development of the melody, with the mode continuously swaying between major and minor and with a suggestive tenor sax. But it would have been nothing more than a valid filler in the albums of the golden era.

"It Doesn’t Matter" starts well with the lively bounce of the piano, but then it turns dull in a heavy and uninspired singing, tiring on the first turn of the chorus and the falsettos à la Bee Gees by Davies himself that come in halfway through are of no use.

In "Where I Stand", and also in "Free as a Bird" the title track, the inadequacy of the second voice chosen by Davies to compensate for Hodgson's absence becomes evident: the new guitarist Mark Hart does not have the vocal stature to recreate that fertile dyarchy with Hodgson.

The soft jazz converted to dance permeates the nimble "I’m Beggin’ You", deflated however by a banal melody, eighties in the deplorable sense of the term, while rhythm&blues says everything but with neither infamy nor praise on both "You Never Can Tell With Friends" and the more nocturnal "Thing for You".

The final "An Awful Thing to Waste" extends to almost eight minutes, thanks to long voice/piano preludes at the start, vaguely in line with Queen, followed by an electro dance groove adorned with percussion, chatters, competent but not ingenious melodies, until a slightly impactful guitar solo fades out.

My judgment on this and the other terminal albums of Supertramp is that of a profound admirer, but not of a delusional worshipper for the sake of everything produced by this band, which in fact has left us several exciting pages along with others that do not match that greatness.