CHICAGO [AKA: CHICAGO II]

When the rightful CTA learned that some hippies usurped their names, they went tits-up and phoned their lawyers and in no time the hippies had changed their names, shortening it to just their hometown's name. Sooo their self-titled second album is just known as Chicago, and not as Chicago 2, although it became that way for those weaker on maths. With an unchanged line-up and their now famous logo in its final form, the septet headed out to record yet another double album, still under Guercio's directions. This album sees the advent of James Pankow becoming the equal of Robert Lamm as songwriter, while Kath remains the third gun, but we also see Cetera and Parazaider popping here or there. Two singles from this album were also sent up the charts.

The group is now more experienced than on their debut album, and if the first and third side are made of unrelated songs, the second make up a giant Pankow-penned suite called Ballet For A Girl In Buchannon, while the fourth side makes another (and separate) suite. While the first side of the album has some typical Chicago or If-type of songs, none seem to stand out, especially surprising from Kath who pens two out of five. You can't win them all!

Directly as the first notes from the almost 13-mins Buchannon suite strikes in Make Me Smile, you just know that the Chicago from the first album is back, with plenty of energy, drama and Kath's guitar, but it's the succession of those short tracks So Much To Say, Anxiety's Moments, WV Fantasies, Now More Than Ever and the awesome To Be Free that makes this suite going even if the two longer movement Make Me Smile and Colour My World (after a Bach arpeggio) went up the charts. We're looking at Pankow's best works along with the upcoming Elegy.

The second disc starts on the slow-starting but carnival-esque Fancy Colours, which could've easily raced up the charts as well if it wasn't for that ending, only to lean on the fantastic 25 Or 6 To 4 (that one did ;o))) before a short (around 9 minutes) Kath-undeclared and unnamed mini-suite takes over, where Kath experiments with a string section directed by Peter Matz. This sounds a bit like Deep Purple's April suite on their third "Bosch" album, but a bit out of the usual Chicago scope, but nevertheless interesting. The fourth-side suite It Better End Soon is a much more urgent business, tense and melodic, but so dramatic lyrics depicting the wars and violence. The Lamm-suite is intelligently shared with Kath and Parazaider. Closing up the album, and probably not linked to the suite is Cetera's Where Do We Go From Here? An intelligent question, but a tune that indicates a different tone for the band, an AOR/MOR sound that prefigures If You Leave Me Now. Yuck!!!!

Although Chicago were a septet, there are no other group who had released so much music after their second album that they'd had done as much as four album's worth and it wasn't finished. As if the remastered album boasting the 2 disc on 1 Cd wasn't enough, they even found the space to place the single edits of two album hits (both seriously shortened/edited), but for me it's not really the kind of bonus track I appreciate. But it won't make a dent in this reviewer's idea that this second Chicago album just bettered the debut album.