BETTER BY FAR

I thought this was CARAVANn's worst album up to that point. After what I felt was the overproduced and over-orchestrated "Cunning Stunts", I felt the band was moving back on track with Blind Dog at St. Dunstans. But they didn't stay on track for long, as this 1977 followup, "Better By Far" clearly demonstrates. At this point, the band consisted of Pye Hastings and Richard Coughlin (of course), with Geoff Richardson and keyboardist Jan Schelhaas. Mike Wedgewood was now out of the picture, replaced by Dek Messecar. Unfortunately, with the exception of the excellent "Man in a Car", written by Schelhaas, most of the album simply consists of sappy ballads, of the kind I don't find particularly engaging. At least the orchestra, for the most part, was thrown in the trash, just like their previous offering, but this album just proves that CARAVAN's best days were behind them. Listen to "Better By Far", and listen to their acknowledged classic, "In the Land of Grey & Pink", there's just no comparing, it's quite obvious what one is the vastly superior album.