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Roxy Music - Stranded CD (album) cover

STRANDED

Roxy Music

 

Crossover Prog

3.65 | 239 ratings

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ZowieZiggy
Prog Reviewer
3 stars Exit Eno and his extravanganza. One can hardly replaces a guy like that. But life goes on ... This year has been an incredibly productive for the band and its members : two studio albums, a solo effort from Eno and a solo Ferry one : "This Foolish Things" with Phil and Paul giving a hand as well as John (Porter) and Eddie (Jobson).

As usual so far, the opener is a great track. "Street Life" is another derivate of "Virginia". It will reach the ninth spot in the charts and is of course a highlight of this album.

"Just Like You" is very piano oriented : it is a mellow / croony tune like Ferry will produce during decades with Roxy as well as in his solo carreer. "Amazona" has a very weak opening, kind of bluesy stuff. It goes on with very nice vocal harmonies and pretty strong intrumental effort; alas it ends like it started ...

"Psalm" is a quite long (within Roxy's standards) and pointless track : this song never lifts off : it remains all the way long too repetitive, without any conviction. No great beat as in "Bogus". Ferry has apparently said that this was the first song he ever wrote. It closes the weakest (by far) side of any Roxy album so far.

B-side opens with a great "Serenade" : typical Roxy (Ferry and Manzarena like they used to be, a very strong backing bass and drumming adding to the glory). One the highlight, even if it only lasts for a mere three minutes.

"Song For Europe" will be one their standards for the decades to come in their live performances (I've seen them twice : 1984 and ...2003). Very emotional vocals from Bryan and great sax from Andy. A quiet but beautiful song (with some Frenchy words : was this the start for Europe ?). It is the first track co-written by Ferry and Mackay (more to come). Bryan have said : "Andy came up with the music...it sounded very European to me, so I thought I'd use latin and french and do it as A Song For Europe." It's not the first time than Bryan introduces some French in his text (maybe its "chic" side like this language) : "Tous ces moments, Perdus dans l'enchantement, Qui ne reviendront, Jamais".

"Mother Of Pearl" is probably the most achieved song of this album. Quite rocking in its first part, it turns then to a quieter tempo with a low-tone Ferry and a good strong bass playing. The last part is too repetitive an lacks in interest. The closing "Sunset" is a six minutes uninspired ballad and leaves the listener completely perturbated.

IMO it is by far the weakest of the Roxy album so far. It will reach the first spot though in the UK charts. Three stars.

ZowieZiggy | 3/5 |

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