Trollheart

Huh. Well that's always good to know, so I don't get too complacent when approaching the last albums...

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

Album title: Mirror Man
Artiste: Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band
Genre: Psych/Blues Rock
Year: 1971
Label: Buddah Records
Producer: Bob Krasnow
Chronological position: Fifth album
Notes:
Album chart position: n/a
Singles: n/a
Lineup: Captain Beefheart –vocals,harmonica,oboe
Alex St. Clair Snouffer–guitar
Jerry Handley –bass
John French–drums
Jeff Cotton– guitar

Well, once again Spotify lets me down. I don't understand how some of an artiste's catalogue can be released there and others not. Maybe it's to do with separate labels? Anyway, the closest I could come there was The Mirror Man Sessions which is, apparently, a whole different album, so I had to turn once more to YouTube. It seems this album only has four tracks, though two of them are in the high double digits in terms of playing time. So I expect it depends on how good (or bad) those two major tracks turn out to be.

Review begins

“Tarotplane”, one of those super-long tracks, clocking in at just over nineteen minutes, opens as a blues jam with some nice harmonica and a relatively “normal” vocal. It's kind of the same most of the way through, but it's really tolerable and probably one of the best Beefheart tracks I've heard yet, or at least, one of the most accessible to me. It apparently references some blues standards, but I'm not that well versed in Blind Willie Dixon (sorry that should be Johnson; Dixon wasn't blind to my knowledge) or Son House that I could recognise them. A clean version of “Kandy korn”, which we heard on the previous album, minus all the production messing around Krasnow insisted on, is next, and it's pretty okay really. Some very nice guitar on it in parts. Very impressive vocal harmonies too. I actually like this, whereas on the previous (shorter) version I did not, which possibly proves that the Captain was right to be angry about the overproduction. This sounds much more natural and less forced and artificial.

None of these songs are short, the least of them being eight minutes long, and “25th Century Quakers” is just short of ten, another kind of psych/blues tune; some annoying horn (what the fuck is overblowing, anyway?) but it doesn't ruin it. That leaves one more long blues jam to close the album, with fifteen minutes plus of the title track, which thankfully involves a lot of that bluesy harmonica that I feel is such a good fit for him. The lyric seems to involve adding the word “mirror” before things like worms, girls and snakes. Hmm.

Track listing and ratings

Tarotplane
Kandy korn
25th Century Quakers
Mirror man

Afterword: This is more the kind of thing that I personally am interested in hearing from Beefheart. He obviously had a great band behind him, and could certainly craft songs, but too often his material is too experimental and freeform for me. Like the later albums I mentioned before, this is more the kind of thing I can get into.

Rating:

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Frownland

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overblowing

And unfortunately for you, Mirror Man is the extent of Beefheart's psychedelic blues jams. I think you'll like the Tragic Band's country rock albums though.

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Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.

Trollheart

Album title: Crime of the Century
Artiste: Supertramp
Genre: Progressive Rock
Year: 1974
Label: A&M
Producer: Ken Scott, Supertramp
Chronological position: Third album
Notes: Although credited as "Bob C. Benberg" here, the drummer's actual name is Bob Siebenberg, and he would use this spelling on future albums.
Album chart position: 4 (UK) 38 (US)
Singles: “Dreamer”, “Bloody well right”
Lineup: Rick Davies: Vocals, piano, Wurlitzer, Hammond, harmonica, synth
Roger Hodgson: Vocals, guitars, piano, synth, Fender Rhodes
John Anthony Helliwell: Saxophone, clarinet, glass harp, celesta
Dougie Thompson: Bass
Bob C. Benberg (Bob Siebenberg): Drums

Supertramp get dismissed by a lot of people with pithy off-hand comments like “Oh yeah: they're the ones who did “The logical song” or “Breakfast in America”, but while it's certainly true that the album Breakfast in America has been their biggest selling and that if you're not a Supertramp album but have one of their records in your collection it's likely to be this, they had had their commercial breakthrough several years before, with this album which yielded them two hits singles, one cracking the difficult American market. While their first album was more folk than prog and their second a bluesy affair, this album began a spate of progressive rock albums that would take them through the seventies and into the world of mainstream music. In ways, 1974 to 1979 can be seen as their golden period, with four very successful albums to their tally. And it all started here.

Review begins

The first thing we hear as the album opens is a lonely harmonica, an instrument which would soon be identified with this band and become part of their signature sound. A long drawn out note, played three times, fades into rising muted synth and guitar as Roger Hodgson's voice comes through against a background of children playing. As the music swells so does the sound of the kids playing, until in a pretty neat piece of production one girl's high-pitched shriek of joy blends with the punch of the percussion as the song gets going properly. A song of basically growing up, “School” is the perfect opener for the album, and features what would have to be called somewhat bitter lyrical material played against a pretty funky guitar from Hodgson, with a powerful piano solo from Davies as the child in the song, now grown to an adult, counsels his own child that he must find his own way in the world, accepting that perhaps after all adults don't know everything. The track is followed by what (I believe weirdly, though I am obviously wrong as it was a hit) was chosen as the single to attack the US market with, the sarcastic “Bloody well right”, which is very much a vehicle both for Davies's honky-tonk piano and laconic vocal.Although I love every song here, this has never been one of my favourites on the album, always came across as somewhat whiny to me. Nevertheless, it gives us a chance to hear Davies take the vocals on his own, and he does a good job with them. Also, you can't fault the piano solo that opens the song, running for almost a quarter of the four and a half minutes the song takes, nor John Helliwell's growling horns which add more bite to the song. Hodgson's guitar, relatively gentle for the most part on the opener, is here snarling and punching, much angrier, as suits the lyrical theme of the song.

Soft and gentle then is the order of the day for “Hide in your shell”, and as will become the pattern over the next eight years, it's Hodgson that takes the vocal here where the song is more cheerful and radio-friendly, with Davies concentrating more on the “album tracks” as opposed to the “singles”, though this does not always follow. Basically though, if you heard a Supertramp song on the radio (with the obvious exception of “Bloody well right”, which I never heard on any radio I owned) it was likely that you were listening to Roger Hodgson. Fender Rhodes and soft synth take the main melody, with Hodgson's vocal soft and relaxed, until the chorus, when percussion booms in and the backing vocals kick the intensity up a little. Overall though it's a lovely little song with a message that life is out there and you need to go look for it, not wait for it to come to you. This is probably the first time you hear what would become the unmistakable sound of this band, where sax, piano and Hodgson's mellifluous vocals blend to create almost a brand right there.

Davies is back for “Asylum”, a much harsher, more bitter track, which begins deceptively quietly, a simple piano line accompanying the low-key vocal, but quickly it picks up and as it goes on the tone gets a little more unhinged and unsteady, the chorus again punching a hole through the reflective mood of the verses and bringing the looming spectre of insanity bearing down on the song. It breaks up into screams and giggles near the end, and if you listen closely, as the piano melody that began the track fades it back out, you can hear the sound of a cuckoo clock. Geddit? Their big hit on this side of the water is up next, and even if you hate Supertramp you've probably heard “Dreamer”. It's really their first foray into what I'd call pure pop music, a definite chart hit even before it was released, with a boppy, devil-may-care melody and a hooky chorus, simplicity itself, as many great pop songs are. Again it's not one of my favourite tracks – I feel it's too throwaway and simple – but it can't be denied that it got them on the music map as it were. That instantly identifiable piano is there, and there's a great buildup halfway through that takes something of the sting of the “poppiness”, if you will, out of the song, but I'm still not too enamoured of it.

I'm also not crazy about “Rudy”, which sees Davies back at the mike, and is a dour, downbeat song about a guy (possibly homeless) riding the subway. Again it features a fine buildup in the middle which has a whole lot of passion in it and just about climaxes (shut it Batty!) as all the instruments pile up almost like a train hurtling out of a station. It's one of only three of the songs on the album in which Hodgson joins Davies on vocals, as he did on the opener and also on “Asylum”, though the main vocal is his and so the song is more identified with Davies than Hodgson among fans. Some fine work from Halliwell on the horns too, and in ways this song is the closest they come to the style demonstrated on Indelibly Stamped, perhaps a carryover from that album. Good use of effects too – the sound of trains, a station announcer, traffic – all help to build up and create the requisite atmosphere. I also hear echoes of ELO in the use of orchestral synth.

A short ballad then in “If everyone was listening”, which returns Hodgson to solo singing duties, and it's a lovely little song with a passionate chorus, a bouncy, cheerful tune which belies the sad lyric of loss that runs through it. The shortest song on the album, it's almost the perfect intro to the title track which comes in again on single piano notes, then Davies's vocal before the track gets going. For a relatively long song (five and a half minutes) it's got remarkably few lyrics, just the two short verses as Davies demands ”Who are these men of lust greed and glory?/ Rip off the mask and let's see!” only to recoil in horror, crying ”But that's not right!/ Oh no! What's the story?/ Look! There's you and there's me!”

The rest of the song is a powerful instrumental, allowing both Davies and Hodgson their heads, as the latter rips off a fine guitar solo which then fades out to allow Davies to thread a simple two-phrase piano riff alongside dark, rumbling synth, booming percussion from Sieberg and wailing sax from Helliwell to take the track, and the album, out to fade.

Track listing and ratings

School
Bloody well right
Hide in your shell
Asylum
Dreamer
Rudy
If everyone was listening
Crime of the century

Afterword: After the gentle folk sensibilities of the debut and the rather raucous rock of the follow-up album, Supertramp appear to be settling here into something of a groove between progressive rock and a sort of soft pop/rock sound, something that would serve them well down the years. A word on the album sleeve: it's got a lot of stick in some quarters, and initially yes it does look like a literal representation of the album – someone locked away in space for the crime of the century, whatever that crime may be – but I prefer to look at it a different way. To me, this is the human spirit, struggling to be free, trying to break the bonds of responsibilities and duties, trying to find its way in the world, pushing against convention and what's expected of it, yet unable to break out of the cell because, in the end, we are all responsible for our own actions, as Supertramp remind us in the title track: no point blaming others – we're all to blame for the evils of the world, and we all must shoulder at least part of the responsibility.

This was my first Supertramp album, though I had of course heard “The logical song” and “Breakfast in America” prior, having bought this album around the 1980 mark, and it made me instantly a fan and hungry for more. That's not a pun on Breakfast in America by the way. Oh, you never thought it was, did you? Fuck you then.

Rating:

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The Batlord

Lol you try WAY too hard to justify whatever for the sake of justifying artsy bull**** that probably just exists in your mind. Reminds me of the time you tried to say "Angel of Death" by Slayer was some protest song against the Holocaust instead of an exploitation song about Nazis cause Nazis are metal and ****.

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Frownland

I wonder if there are any Nazi thinkpieces about artists like Anal Cunt and Whitehouse appropriating Nazi culture.

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Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.

Trollheart

Album title: Crisis? What Crisis?
Artiste: Supertramp
Genre: Progressive Rock
Year: 1975
Label: A&M
Producer: Ken Scott, Supertramp
Chronological position: Fourth album
Notes:
Album chart position: 20 (UK) 44 (US)
Singles: n/a
Lineup: see previous.

A fairly appropriate title, as during its recording the band suffered a few minor crises of their own, not least the pressure from their label to write a follow-up to the hugely successful previous album. While out touring Crime of the Century in the USA, Roger Hodgson had an accident with his hand, which led to their cancelling the tour and using the time to write the new album. Even so, they were fairly bereft of ideas, with just some leftover songs from the previous album to work with, and the pressure was on to have another hit single, a feat they utterly failed to accomplish. Many of the band agreed at the time that the album was a mess, rushed and nowhere near as polished or cohesive as Crime of the Century, which I'd agree with, though it certainly is not without its charm.

Review begins

The two-minute track that acts almost as an intro for the album sets the tone, not only with its title and its casual whistling, sort of referring back to the cover of the album, but with its rather simplistic acoustic guitar line and trite lyric, almost sounding like something filched from a late Beatles song, a lot of George Harrison in it. Things don't get any better with “Sister Moonshine”, which has a more developed feel about it but somehow does not scream Supertramp to me. I've never been all that fond of the song, and listening back to it now my opinion has not changed. There's more energy about it than the opener sure, and again it's Hodgson on the vocals which should almost guarantee, if not a single, at least recognition as one of the better tracks on the album, but I don't find it so. In fact, it's not until Davies comes in with “Ain't nobody but me”, a late contender by all accounts for the writing sessions, that the album really starts to come together.

This has what would become the classic Supertramp sound – the close vocal harmonies, the sax, the harmonica, bouncy piano and happy guitar – and finally, for me, kicks some life into the album. Well, that's not fair: “Sister Moonshine” is bright and bouncy, but it's almost like until “Ain't nobody but me” hits you don't realise this is a Supertramp record. And this is odd, really, as while the former song as I said is a happy, upbeat one, characteristically Davies takes charge of the more dour, downbeat ones, and this is such. It has a great rising synth opening and then a wonderful piano intro which flows right into a twelve-bar blues that immediately grabs your attention. Sure, again it doesn't scream Supertramp right away, but as soon as the chorus cuts in you know who you're listening to. It's almost like the guys have just woken up and realised they have work to do, and from here on, pretty much, the album steers a steady course through a mixture of blues, prog rock and pop songs that really should have resulted in at least one single.

If it isn't the first time on the album that we hear John Helliwell's bright sax breaks, it certainly seems like it, and they really add something to what is at its heart a pretty morose song, sung in a kind of a grumbly growl by Rick Davies. There's a sense of doo-wop in the end section which is interesting, and a peppy instrumental to end, taking us into one of the highlights on the album, “A soapbox opera”, which comes in on angelic high synth and piano, vocal effects softly in the background before Hodgson returns on vocals, that bright uptempo piano leading the line and a measure of the rhythm and even melody of “Breakfast in America” in there. Halfway through there's a choir singing – I don't know if it's a real choir, taped or even Hodgson (who can hit some high registers) though no additional players are credited – rather appropriate as the song seems to deride organised religion and its agents. “Another man's woman”, on the other hand, has no deep meaning, and is just a fun rock-and-roll, almost Country jam, with Davies in fine form back behind the mike and doing a great job on the piano, which really drives this fast-paced tune.

Davies lets loose with a superb piano solo in the third minute and really, from there to the end it's an instrumental outro which really builds up well to the fade. “Lady” is very much a Roger Hodgson vehicle, reminiscent of ...Famous Last Words and like the previous track has a relatively rapid tempo though it is gentler. Sounds like a xylophone of all things opening it and then I definitely hear echoes from “Dreamer” in the melody, perhaps evidence that they were struggling to find new material for this album. In places you could almost transpose one song over the other and not realise. Elements of the faster section in “Rudy” too. I do like the song, but it is quite derivative; you can really hear the “Dreamer” influence in the fourth minute. The guys look back to their second album then for “Poor boy”, with its heavy blues narrative, and again it's Davies back on vocals for this slower, more laconic track, with what sounds like a kazoo this time opening proceedings, though I feel it may just be Hodgson messing around. Some great accordion (probably synthesised but nice anyway) and good backing vocals with a slick little sax solo from Helliwell, very cool and jazzy. It's an odd thing, but no matter how many times I listen to this album I never remember “Just a normal day”, and even now as I listen to it I'm kind of not hearing it. There's something just very forgettable about it, and I don't think it's that it's a forgettable song, but I can never recall any part of it later, and I doubt I will this time either. It seems to be a ballad, with some very nice sax, but that's now, and I'm sure I'll forget about it later. Strange.

The album ends then on a philosophical note, with “The meaning”, which comes in on a very spacey, almost psychedelic tone with what sounds like a sitar and returns Hodgson to the mike for the short duration of the album. It's got some great phrasing in it, with most of the lines of the verse repeated – ”You'd better get, you'd better get/ Light in your head” etc – and a really nice jangling guitar line driving it, while the chorus is simply the one line repeated over and over – ”If you know what the meaning is” though this later changes from “meaning” to “answer” in the last chorus. I love this song, one of my other favourites on the album, not forgetting the closer, a beautiful and simple little love song called “Two of us” and played off against basically a muted organ line with Hodgson's yearning vocal a perfect accompaniment. Acoustic guitar joins the melody later in the song and it's a fine way to end the album.

Track listing and ratings

Easy does it
Sister Moonshine
Ain't nobody but me
A soapbox opera
Another man's woman
Lady
Poor boy
Just a normal day
The meaning
Two of us

Afterword: I would have to admit this album is not a patch on Crime of the Century, and you can definitely see where they were reaching for tracks to fill it, using ideas already explored and melodies used on the previous album, and possibly looking towards the future too. As far as A&M were concerned, this would have been a disappointment, yielding, so far as I can see, no singles, never mind hits, and barely grazing the top twenty, though it paradoxically seems to have done almost as well in the US as the previous offering, maybe because people bought it expecting more of the same. Or maybe they just liked it more. Whatever, it was not the follow-up the label had expected. That wouldn't come for another four years, when the faith A&M retained in Supertramp would pay handsome dividends at last. But first, there was the matter of the fifth album.

Rating:

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Anteater

I love Supertramp's debut album, but the rest of their 70's output is hit or miss for me. Still diving into their 80's period and beyond though. Nice to see them getting proper attention and reviews in any case: it gives me an excuse to revisit them and see if my impressions can improve.

That being said, they're also a huge influence on It Bites (one of my favorite groups ever) so kudos to that.

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Trollheart

Album title:Even in the Quietest Moments ...
Artiste: Supertramp
Genre: Progressive Rock
Year: 1977
Label: A&M
Producer: Supertramp
Chronological position: Fifth album
Notes:
Album chart position: 12 (UK) 16 (US)
Singles: “Give a little bit”
Lineup: As before

The third in the quadrology that would see Supertramp at both their most creative and their most commercially successful, Even in the Quietest Moments... showed the boys both delving deep into the well of progressive rock more than they ever had before, with the closer their longest song since “Try again” off the debut, and also continuing their move into standard pop territory with whimsical songs like “Babaji” and the hit single “Give a little bit”. All of this would finally culminate in their masterpiece, for which they are most remembered (and sometimes reviled), to be released two years later.

Review begins

Chances are that even if you're not a Supertramp fan you may know the opener, that single “Give a little bit”, as it has featured in advertisements and incidental music through the years. It's taken in on a simple acoustic guitar with Roger Hodgson singing the first verse before the rhythm section comes in and the song gets going properly. It's an upbeat, happy start to the album which, from its cover, looks rather melancholy and lonely, and some of the songs are, but not this one. Fine sax from Hellilwell drips off the tune, and it is of course replete with that standard Supertramp vocal harmony and hook in the chorus. “Lover boy” is another slightly whimsical tune, essentially chronicling the exploits of a lothario as he makes his way through life without a care. It's Davies taking a turn on the mike this time and the song is driven on his sprightly piano, sort of shades of “Bloody well right” from Crime of the Century in a way. It's very light and breezy for the opening sections, then the drums power in and it gets a little heavier with what sounds like cello coming in to the mix and giving the song a very orchestral and grand feel.

Playful backing vocals from Hodgson keep things light, accompanied by whistling, and then the song picks up speed with swirling organ and wild guitar for the closing section, with an interesting little false ending before we're into the title track, and the first, if you will, serious song. With birdsong and a very gentle acoustic guitar, “Even in the quietest moments” reunites us with the vocal of Hodgson, which is perfectly suited for this song. Rising clarinet sighs into the mix, before thick synth crashes in momentarily, but falls back out almost immediately, leaving Hodgson and his guitar alone for the first verse, bouncing percussion coming in too as the track begins to build, Hodgson's voice rising achingly. Strong organ slides over the tune as it gains in intensity, moving towards its climax, before fading out as it began on the pastoral guitar of Hodgson.

Another simple little song, “Downstream” is a recollection of a nice day out, attended by basic piano and Davies's voice, certainly a vehicle for his solo talents and I believe a sort of hidden highlight of the album, a track that often seems to get passed over in favour of the more elaborate songs, but I love this one. Not so crazy about “Babaji”, which seems to me something of a rewrite of “Lady” off the previous album, with its deceptively slow intro that then metamorphoses into an upbeat rocker, with a lot of elements from “Rudy” and “Crime of the century” in there too. Just a little too derivative, and one of the few Hodgson songs that just doesn't grab me. Maybe I'm being unfair to it, as it often passes me by, but it's never made much of an impression on me. If there is a low point (and there really isn't) in the album I would mark it here, but after this things get right back on track and there's a real upswing as the album ends, more or less as it began, strongly.

“From now on” is a pretty yearning song, Davies's piano rippling through it like a heartbeat, and in fact almost presaging the melody of the next, and final, song, but in a good way. There's some very good guitar here too from Hodgson, and powerful drumming from Bob Siebenberg. Organ breathing over the melody adds to the atmosphere, with a sweet sax solo from John Helliwell too and even some melodica. The last two minutes of the song are mostly just Davies singing the repeated line ”Guess I'll always have to be/ Living in a fantasy/ That's the way it has to be/ From now on” and yes, the song is probably overlong at more than six minutes, but somehow it doesn't feel like it.

Fading out on a group vocal it brings in the epic closer, “Fool's overture”, which opens on a simple piano line, rather like “Downstream”, but with definitely more of a sense of an introduction rather than an actual melody line this time. Sound effects fade in, including church bells, traffic, crowds and Churchill's famous “We shall never surrender!” speech. Thick synth beefs up the melody with a thumping bassline, picking up the pace and indeed creating a rather long overture. Given that the song runs for over ten minutes I guess it's all right that the instrumental introduction covers nearly half that time, and it certainly sets the mood, to the point where, listening to this for the first time, I assumed the whole thing was instrumental. But of course it isn't, as Hodgson takes the final vocal and sings what he has himself admitted to be a lyric that mean nothing, but I always took him to be referring to Christ when he sings ”Called the man a fool/ And stripped him of his pride/ Everyone was laughing/ Up until the day he died.” Who knows? I like to think that's what he meant, and maybe he did, and maybe he didn't. It's a great lyric nonetheless.

Hodgson puts in, I believe, his best performance on this track, and you can hear the passion dripping from his voice when he croons ”My friends we're not alone/ He waits in silence to lead us all home.” Suddenly the piano and clarinet are joined by a huge booming percussion and sax, then there's another instrumental break with effects – wind, choir singing - before everything builds up again for the big finale, that pulsing bass pulling everything along with it and the song ends on a single chord held for over thirty seconds, fading down and away with sax swirling around it.

Track listing and ratings

Give a little bit
Lover boy
Even in the quietest moments
Downstream
Babaji
From now on
Fool's overture

Afterword:

A real improvement over the last album, though nowhere near a concept album Even in the Quietest Moments feels like there's more of a theme running through it, seems more cohesive and well thought out. Chartwise it was a major improvement too, giving Supertramp their first Gold US album and showing far more respectfully, just nudging the top ten in the UK while nestling well within the top twenty in the US, making it their best performing album ever there, even moreso than Crime of the Century, and paving the way for the big one to come.

Rating:

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The Batlord

I'm hoping that isn't the cover to an actual rock album?

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