FOR YOUR PLEASURE

"Do The Strand" (vote 8.5) is the opener: another rave-up after the spectacular "Re-Make Re-Model" of the first album. This time, however, the rhythm is more pounding (thanks to the drums and the piano), the track is more dragged by the rhythm. It doesn't reach the class level of the previous one but it's very close to it. Mackay's left makes sublime numbers.

Repeating the formula of the first album, after the rave-up comes the high-class ballad ("Beauty Queen, vote 7,5) with refined instrumental pieces. Ferry imposes a new (high) standard on singers who want to try their hand at this art-rock. With respect to the first album, we begin to notice a greater conventionality in the rhythm of the songs and in the sound.

Again the sequence of the debut: after the relaxed ballad, comes the song full of melancholy and existential anguish sung divinely by Ferry. But this third song ("Strictly Confidential, vote 8) much shorter than its correspondent ("If There Is Something") doesn't reach the apexes of that of the debut, despite touching a considerable pathos thanks to Ferry and Mackay.

Fourth song of side A, with a very sustained rhythm, "Editions of You" (vote 7,5), in some ways recalls "Virginia Plain" but with more length and less variations. The piece proceeds alternating the solos of Manzanera (strident), Mackay (almost blues) and Eno at the synth (almost psychedelic). It could close the first side in crescendo, but it's followed by a languid and experimental piece: "In Every Dream Home A Heartache" (vote 7,5/8). Here end the similarities with the debut. The track represent a rhythmic pause and Ferry's voice, which is neurasthenic, sings over a carpet of keyboards for about three minutes, when the drums enters and finally the arrangement becomes experimental and paroxysmal, with Manzanera to weave oblique atmospheric sounds . The song fades in my opinion too early, then return with an instrumental tail. It would have been better, in my opinion, to avoid this detachment and to continue the paroxysmal progression.

With side B comes the longest and most discussed piece of the LP: "The Bogus Man" (nine and a half minutes, vote 8,5). It's a song with an exceptional rhythmic propulsion (great work by Paul Thompson and John Porter), almost tribal, which continues undeterred for almost 10 minutes. On the side of this rhythm there are dissonances with the saxophone, the guitar, and the devilries of Eno that, in truth, remained in the shadows in this second Lp of Roxy Music. The song is grotesque, almost Kafkaesque, it traces a threatening but demented atmosphere. In the middle the singing ceases, and only the rhythm and the dissonances remain, which continue without ever changing, without a solo, so in a very repetitive and alienating way until the end. Someone could bore such a great lack of variation, and in fact the song is ultimately repetitive and tends to reach a hypnotic and surreal atmosphere with a minimalist arrangement: it recall the theater of the absurd. I like it very much, it doesn't tire me, and it seems very courageous to me. The Bogus Man is also the great novelty of this LP, which so far had gone on repeating piece by piece the sequence of the debut album.

"Grey Lagoons" (vote 7+) is a piano ballad with a wonderful sax solo followed by Ferry's harmonica and Manzanera's guitar. A simple piece, from the compositional point of view, which is based on the performances of the musicians.

"For Your Pleasure" (almost seven minutes, vote 8) begins as an atmospheric ballad (along the lines of "Sea Breezes"), but soon the rhythm and the singing stop in front of an electronic carpet, marked by a nervous rhythm, where a great work by Eno and Manzanera creates a mysterious, repetitive atmosphere , which continues to the bitter end, as in "The Bogus Man", without a solo, without a variation, exasperating more and more the obsessiveness of the sounds. Only at the end the obsessive rhythm subsides to give way to a fading ending. Not a great masterpiece, but a brave experimental song.

However, it's not easy to repeat an innovative masterpiece like the debut album, but with this record Roxy Music consolidates the qualities of the debut, and don't limit themselves to reproduce the same music: on the second side they find a new, subtle, hypnotic identity, maintaining overall an excellent sound quality, inspiration and creativity. This second record is therefore only very little inferior to the previous one, and so it's a small masterpiece.

Medium quality of the songs: 7,875. Vote album: 9. Rating: Five Stars.

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