CRIME OF THE CENTURY

But if I want to remain objective, it doesn't matter how much their music meant to me or much I enjoyed their concerts, I have to be honest plus as objective as I can, and honestly, I never believed SUPERTRAMP is a Progressive Rock band or even related, but there are different opinions of persons I respect a lot, so I will make an effort and review it.

The album opens with "School", one of the most Progressive, elaborate and well developed tracks from their career, everything is perfect, from the harmonica intro to the radical changes, frantic piano sections, vocal interplay, shouts Progressive Rock from start to end and is so well down to catch the mainstream public, incredibly solid opener.

This is what I don't understand they pass from an almost masterpiece to "Bloody Well Right" a boring song, absolutely bland, repetitive, each time I play the album, I can't wait for this song to stop. The vocal section is a bit better, more rock and less soft Jazz, but they come back to that horrendous chorus, next time I will push the skip button.

"Hide in your Shell" is much better than the previous, but without reaching spectacular levels, the composition is excellent, they manage to create simple but beautiful passages that flow perfectly from start to end, the calmed electric piano is a very high point and the soft changes are delightful, the choirs are still a bit too acute for my taste, they are quite enjoyable, this proves a song doesn't need to be frantic to be good.

"Asylum" begins with a very nice piano section, soft and pleasant, maybe this piano is the trademark of the album, because it's present almost everywhere, for the first time I listen a very rewarding Mellotron interpretation, but there's a problem, the intro seems to never end....A soft drum explosion marks the end of the intro and a good vocal section enhanced by orchestral tones, but still something is missing, the song reaches a strong and dramatic conclusion, but never the climax, like a shuttle with the engines on that never laves the atmosphere.

"Dreamer" must be one of the most paradoxical songs, every time I went to a SUPERTRAMP concert, this track was one of the highlights, it's well constructed, each instrument and section links perfectly with the others,...........But (There's always a but) the vocals are a torture, loud acute, out of place, that was the hook to capture new audience, but simply can't stand them, and the xylophone closing is simply horrendous, good on stage, terrible on studio.

"Rudy" starts promising, with the mellow and dramatic piano intro by Roger, but suddenly mutates first into some kind of Proggy - Jazzy - Pop section with little interest for me and then comes he debacle, because they seen to get closer to Disco Music (Before Disco was even remotely popular) and a boring closing section that despite the orchestra touches induces to sleep.

"If everyone was Listening" is what I call a filler, I find absolutely no interest, nothing relevant, just makes time to complete the album format until the fantastic closer comes, nothing to comment.

Now it's time for "La Piece de Resistance", the title song, another close to masterpiece song from start to end, the correct voice and piano intro softly going "in crescendo" lets us know from the first notes that we are before something special.

The drumming is outstanding, the spine that keeps the body complete, even when the guitar enters, Bob C Benberg manages to keep the coherence and the logic, and then the piano as announcing the good things to come create a sense of suspense and drama hardly ever reached by SUPERTRAMP that leads to a fantastic final section where band and orchestra hit us with everything the have. The band found the best position as closer, because people take the CD of the player with a good taste in the mouth..............FANTASTIC song.

Now comes the problem, two great tracks out of 6 may justify a 3 stars rating some of the others take the rating to 2 stars that would be the fair rating, specially "Dreamer", "Bloody Well Right" and the anodyne "If everybody was Listening".

Despite this fact, "School" and "Crime of the Century", don't deserve to be included in album rated with less than three solid stars, and that's my position, maybe not absolutely objective, but honest.....And it's not the case of a Prog snob (which I proudly am to certain degree) rating low an album because he believes doesn't belong to the genre, I would give the same rating in a POP or mainstream site.

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