BETTER BY FAR

Better By Far is the eigth studio album from Caravan. Mike Wedgwood has left the band and in comes new bassist Dek Messecar. Both Cunning Stunts from 1975 and Blind Dog at St. Dunstans from 1976 where albums with good moments, but unfortunately also with some really bad ones. I rated both albums 3 stars. Better By Far is unmistakably a Caravan album, but sadly it has more boring moments than good ones.

The music is more or less soft rock´n´roll by now and all hints of progressive rock are gone except for the only good song here which is the instrumental The last unicorn. Allthough I said this is unmistakably a Caravan album it´s a really uninspired one.

The musicianship is good, it´s just too bad the great musicians don´t use their abilities playing good music.

The production is allright. It´s in the same soft rock vein as the two previous albums.

The cover artwork displays the typical Caravan humour but it´s not that pretty.

Better By Far has been a great disappointment for me and it´s not an album I will return to in the near future. This is only for fans of soft rock. Don´t expect anything progressive on this album ( except for The Last Unicorn). Consider yourself warned. I´ll rate this 2 stars which is only because the musicanship is good and the compositions are as such well done even though I don´t enjoy them.