•
Rating: Despite the prog community on DeBaser having deserted my review on Todd Rundgren's Utopia, I, a humble and unworthy fan of the Magician, persist undeterred to review their second album. Released the year after their debut, like the previous one completely live, it also - like the debut - came out just a few months after a Rundgren solo LP, and features the debut lineup appearance of Roger Powel on bass and John Wilcox on drums, meaning two more quarters of what would complete Utopia. In honor of this, Todd will return to adding the apostrophe and respecting the possessive in the band's name (see previous review)...
Unlike the preceding year, here they stray from prog, though not completely. Progressive is an ingredient among many, no longer the spice giving more or less the same exact flavor to very different dishes, nor the essential, indispensable ingredient of the meal... Like a cake whose slices each have a different taste and flavor, including progressive as an aftertaste present in only some episodes. In other tracks, it is sometimes just the "dough," sometimes additional filling, with brief phrases or quick transitions.
The opening, and almost title track "Another Life," between prog and brass, is half a theme song for a 1970s police show and the other half a sort of progressive version of the Manhattan Transfer. Pure emotion arrives with "The Wheel,” a splendid California beach folk at sunset. The alchemist Todd creates gold with whatever he has at hand. A delicate harmonica, a friendly trumpet, and a gentle xylophone. An incredible gospel finale, with the audience spontaneously starting to keep time with their hands, and Todd naturally, only with his voice, and his unique, original gospel vocalizations.
When prog (jazz-)rock returns in the expressive power of "The Seven Rays," one is almost disappointed: not that the track isn't good, not that the prog displeases the reviewer, but the Wizard's fan had not been given, until then, any opportunity to enjoy the live performances of the artist and his solo repertoire (and therefore non-progressive)... And today's fan has no support to enjoy Rundgren live from the first half of the seventies. If the intro is almost insignificant, the "Mr. Triscotti" of this "Intro-Mister Triscuits" is another valid episode, half anthem and half excellent guitar jazz. In "Something's Coming" instead, prog comes very close to Rundgren's singer-songwriter style, to his "diagonal" pop, understood as quirky - hence 'oblique' - and multifaceted - thus 'transversal'. Spectacular and very fast.
When the not-so-great hard blues of "Heavy Metal Kids" kicks in (released on his - until then - latest solo album), the audience rejoices: they are Rundgren's "devotees," capable of recognizing his track from a distance. The piece, incidentally, sounds better live. The progression is all rock, nothing to do with progressive, with "Do Ya" by The Move of Jeff Lynne, from '72, a track that, after this live, coincidentally will be reprised (and with great success) by Lynne himself in 1976, with his then band, none other than the Electric Light Orchestra... Full of riffs and catchy, it seems like the Californian version, drunk, smoked, sunburnt, dirty with salt and sand, of the cerebral "Sweet Jane" by those from the New York subway. Try taking something from Coney Island and bring it to Malibu Beach...
The finale entrusted to "Just One Victory", pop soul and gospel that, with the more "open" sound (and "some" more instruments accompanying it) compared to the version in "A Wizard, A True Star", certainly sounds fourfold, so much so as to almost seem like a completely different track. A wonderful gospel finale, excessive and in total exultation...
With Rundgren, it's like this... He didn't release a solo live until 1992. With Utopia, he does two in two years. And the masterpieces, in his two lives of unreleased, he has never re-recorded in the studio... In this second episode, Todd embraces all the styles that suit him, and places progressive rock not above, but beside other musical genres of his liking. Accompanied by an excellent lineup, as well as produced by the best producer in the world, the stage delights itself and us with all its art, its poetry, and its, why not, technical ability, as a guitarist and a singer. The genius has returned again, his magic wand has been repaired, and works as before. Those who love good music cannot help but love him. His name is Todd Rundgren.
Loading comments slowly
