HAS ANYONE HERE SEEN SIGFRIED?

Actually PAVLOV's DOG's "Third" is the type of album one listens once and then forget it quite fast. It does not have anything to offer for keeping in memory. It might be good for impressing your girlfriend how romantic your musical taste is, assumed she is the type not knowing much about music. Most of the tracks are pop-ish lovesongs, some of them admittedly really beautiful but not exciting for any serious prog listener. There are only 3 songs worth to mention at all, "Trafalgar", "Suicide" and "While You Were Out". If this is enough for you and you like shallow stuff in the vein of GEORGE HARRISON's or PAUL MCCARTNEY 's later material you can go for it. But for me it'd be a complete waste of money honestly. More than 1 star would be too much for this one!

From a great and creative band in 1975, "Pavlov's Dog" turned into an anonymous group of buddies playing standard music. Weird destiny...In just two years time.

Actually, this album is not that bad but the incredible sounds and melodies available in their fantastic "Pampered Menial" have just disappeared. "Trafalgar" has a similar beat as "Another One Bites The Dust" (released in 1980) but the overall mood is AOR while "I Love You Still" sounds as a poor Springsteen number.

The bottom is reached with "Jenny". An insipid rock ballad. Real bad. I tell you. The mellowish and syrupous "It's All For You" won't do much to raise the quality of this album. I agree with a fellow reviewer when he compares this one with some Harrison work. But Harrison will remain Harrison in my heart (I hope you are following me). What we have here, is sub, sub-par Harrison's work.

Some pleasant songs as "Suicide" and the instrumental "While You Were Out" are welcome but both are very short. A true "Pavlov's Dog" song finally ! "Only You" reminds the great debut ("Julia"). Catchy melody, great vocals and good instrumental part. The one and only highlight. The next pair of songs are also pleasant but not more.

On the behalf of "Pavlov's Dog", one needs to acknowledge that several members have left but four out of seven from their debut are still in the band (of which their leader). This could have been sufficient to produce a better record.

Two stars thanks to the good sequence of songs towards the end of the album (but the closing number is very weak again).

Has Anyone Here Seen Sigfried? is a reissue of the band's notorious third album that was supposed to have been released in the late 70's but unfortunately didn't see the light of day due to disbandment of the band and label difficulties. The album was in fact released as a bootleg under the name Third and in some cases The St. Louis Hounds, featuring a picture of the actual Pavlov's Dog, but it wasn't until 2007 that the record would get an official release by the German label Rockville Music. Titled Has Anyone Here Seen Sigfried?, this new version of the album is a lot more polished than the previous bootlegs and features additional 10 bonus tracks of unreleased material from the 70's.

I just so happen to own a copy of the bootleg version of the album that was re-released in the 80's and after reading a few positive reviews of this official release finally decided to give it a few spins on Spotify just to see how it compares to the bootleg. My original hypothesis was that Has Anyone Here Seen Sigfried? would be just as disappointing as the bootleg release, since the main problem with this album is the songwriting and not the sound quality. Hence, even the improved mastering won't fix a record that is flawed in the songwriting department.

Unfortunately for me, I didn't manage to disprove my hypothesis and gave up after only two spins. This is pretty much the same album as Third and even the bonus tracks, most of which being alternate versions of tracks from the band's two first releases, aren't enough to make this release worth a purchase. The version that is available on Spotify in Europe is actually very different from the one that is listed here since the track order on the first CD is switched and features a studio outtake titled Stop Short. The second CD is comprised of live renditions of these and other classic Pavlov's Dog tracks from the 2011/2012 reunion gigs. It's definitely nothing that I would recommend, please read my review of the 2011 live album Live And Unleashed if you want to know more.

The only real surprise this time around was the track Painted Ladies. I didn't like it too much on the bootleg version but it does sound much better here due to a much more prominent guitar lead track. I still think that the two minute song Suicide is easily the highlight of the album and it's a pity that this songs was not included on the band's second album since it would have fused so well with the rest of the band's material from 1975-76 era.

I'm sure that fans of Pavlov's Dog will purchase this release just so they can own a good sounding copy of the band's third album but that's pretty much everything that this release got going for it.

***** star songs: Suicide (2:03)

**** star songs: Good Bye Trafalger (3:27) I Love You Still (4:06) Painted Ladies (3:19)

*** star songs: Falling In Love (3:24) Only You (4:31) Jenny (4:09) Today (3:05) Stop Short (2:38) It's All For You (3:50) While You Were Out (2:51)