SAGA

I would've been flabbergasted by this album. Simply put, Saga is an original band: Ian Crichton sounds like thunder and lightnin' on guitar, Jim Crichton is absolutely bonkers on keyboards and Sadler is singing in his own dramatic style. The moogs are omnipresent and thick, and they are duelling with the guitar solos in the Saga trademark way,...so what's not to like?

Well, it didn't age pretty well. There's the problem with the cutting-edge-technology-albums: it's too much of l'air du temps, perhaps wanting too much to be innovative, too rooted in the zeitgeist. The first Van Halen, Police, Cars and Devo albums all came to life in 1978 and Saga's debut is easily the corniest of them all. I guess the Toto/Triumph/Styx/Kansas FM friendly format generates more laughs than praise as the years go by.

Saga were sonically fully themselves and top musicians yet from their 1978 start. Songs like Humble Stance and Ice Nice is showing off their spectacular abilities; man, could the Crichton brothers be the Canadian equivalent of the Van Halen brothers? They are tragically talented and they can dabble with pop also: the first track keyboard line sounds like Human League's Don't You Want Me!

To me, Saga is one of the shamefully overlooked band in Rock History and worthy of rediscovering compared to gimmicky lesser talented acts of that era (*cough*Kiss) who had nothing to say.

My job is done here.

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