SUPERTRAMP

I really loved this album! I only entered the world of Supertramp in 1976, so I had some back-tracking to do. Though this album lacks the "full" lineup of the "golden age" of Supertramp, it has Hodgson and Davies and that's what really counts. The album is bookended by the two versions of the ear candyworm of "Surely" but then has some really beautiful songs in between--songs that already display the writing chemistry that would produce a string of stellar albums for the rest of the decade. "Nothing to Show" (4:53) (9/10) could have been an AM radio hit. And the longer songs like "Aubade and I Am Not Like Other Birds" (5:17) (8/10), "Maybe I'm a Beggar" (6:44) (8/10) and the bluesy, "Try Again" (12:02) (9/10) give us a preview of the wonderful multi-part song structures of future Supertramp albums. At this time however the band sounds like a lot of organ-based blues-psychedelia bands coming out of England--but far more mature than one might have expected for a debut album. The problem lies in the fact that the band has not decided which type of musical track it wants to pursue yet, so the songs don't always seem to fit together or to even be of a consistent quality. Forget this is the Supertramp of Breakfast in America or even Crime of the Century and you can and will really enjoy this album. It's good.