EVEN IN THE QUIETEST MOMENTS ...

On their meticulously programmed transformation to mass popularity, SUPERTRAMP became masters of disguise. At the end of the day, we knew less about them, especially musically, than we had at the start. No conventional turn of phrase or simplistic musical idea was beneath them, and their penchant for the campy and strident nursery rhyme level melodies was exceeded only by their insistence on artificially elongating the few worthwhile ideas that surfaced on each album. This was usually achieved with the sort of aimless and dispirited vocal and musical doodling that appears to pass for progressive in a shocking number of us. "Even in the Quietest Moments" in no way buck these trends.

One need look no further than the opening cut, the flaccid "Give a Little Bit" to expose oneself to all the above elements at doses well beyond the tolerable. On the surface a charming pop ditty, it utterly lacks in ardor and potency, and the last minute and a half meander to the extent that any residual moxie can only limp backstage. The title cut is less overtly pandering and has a pleasant acoustic quality, but fails to shake its stolid demeanor. "Lover Boy" and "From Now On" trade in their signature flaky opportunism and are quite dull besides. The only (almost) enjoyable song is "Babaji", with a fascinating rhythm and creative sax, even if, once again, the fade out is horrendous, but I guess it would be too much to ask SUPERTRAMP to be concise. "Fool's Overture" is the group's approximation of a prog epic and, to be fair, at the time we weren't hearing a lot of this on the radio anymore, but it pales relative to what we weren't hearing at all back then, like the symphonic and spacey prog just hitting its stride in Europe. Still the last few minutes are quite satisfying.

Like all peak period Supertramp with the mild exception of "Crime", "Even In the Quietest Moments" is an album not worth making noise about. I expect that future generations will regard the group's sales figures with reverence, but not much else. .