SUPERVISION

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Ouch! The drop-off in quality from OUT IN THE DARK to this was pretty precipitous. I know, my review of that album was fairly lukewarm, but I really can't believe this!

OK, to be fair, there are decent moments here on, say, the instrumental "Dancing Into Daylight" and it's not exactly a "sell-out" as it's still identifiably prog-rock. The problem is that there are moments of this album that are downright plagiaristic. Clearly, the band had been spending far too much time listening to the two UK albums, time they should have been spending honing their sound. "Signs Of Solitude" lifts a chord sequence directly from "Nothing To Lose", the bass-riff from "Thirty Years" turns up in "Paradise Lost". And most galling of all, they copy the entire end sequence from "The Only Thing She Needs" note-for-note in the middle of "Time For A Change"! The CS80 chords are even intact, and it sounds like they just erased Eddie Jobson's violin and dubbed a Roland Ruckstuhl keyboard solo over it! For a so-called "progressive" rock band, this degree of theft of another band's work is absolutely UNFORGIVABLE.

As for the rest of the album, there's little to get excited about. "Blackmail" and the title tune are OK but unexciting pop-prog. "Tragedy" is a warmed-over "Undertow" imitation. And the less said about the piano ballad "Woman's Art?"-from the faintly sexist lyrical conceits to the imbeciliic and predictable "twist" ending-the better.

This Swiss band released ''Out In The Dark'' in 1981. Although it was released in the eighties, it still had the genuine seventies sound cloning ''Genesis'' quite well. This ''Supervision'' work is another affair, believe me!

This is a partially a pure product from the eighties: synth pop, spiced with neo-prog elements. When I listened to the opening number ''Blackmail'' I thought I was confronted to some sub-sub par ''Buggles''. The difference of course is the ''The Buggles'' were fun and inventive while they released their debut album. This one is just a re-heat of an old plate.

There are some ''Genesis-Collins'' attitude during the weak title track. Over five dull minutes with an overdub bass and unmelodic sax. Press next is the best option. The first decent track IMO is ''Signs Of Solitude''. It is precursory of what ''IQ'' will be doing a few years later: a melancholic and sad ballad, strongly ''Genesis-Gabriel'' oriented (same applies to the short ''Woman's Art'').

The following ''Tragedy'' is of the same mould but with Collins oriented vocals this time. What a change! Peter Wolf (their vocalist) already did this mix of voices in their previous release (he was more Anderson-like before though).

''Time For A Change'' is another ''Plastic Age'' pop track. Still, it features some fine synthesizers during the instrumental middle part. Not too bad a pop song after all. The closing number is a twelve minutes epic divided into three sections. It is probably the best that you can expect from this album. Each part is distinctive but nicely flows into one another.

''Arrival'' is rather dramatic and again on the sad side, it is very short and introduces a more upbeat ''The Attack''. Gabriel sits next door in the middle of ''Epping Forrest'', probably. A warrior track: battles, war, dead. A theme very close to the one from ''The Knife''. But this must be a coincidence, right?

The closing part holds all the drama of ''Here Comes The Flood'' and pleasantly ends this album.

If you would take out the synth pop tunes from this work, it is quite a neo-prog album ''avant la lettre''. But it is only interesting as such. Two stars.