CRIME OF THE CENTURY

A good piece of music if you are into any kind of artistic music at all! I've always found this band extremely fun, and never too serious to devote extreme concentration to. I honestly don't know what actually makes this album so good, but it is all the same. With two and a half lead vocalists and enough electric piano to make you go half insane, I have already laid down the basics to a good prog album. One thing that actually does stick out from the normal prog grup is the lack of synthesizers and guitar, most of this albums lead instrumentation is led by different forms of classical and electric piano's. Besides the lead instruments, the drumming is what I find absolutely great, because if there wasn't Benbergs typical rock beats, you wouldn't be sure if you were listening to jazz or swing. Anyways tha album...

I find the openr to be one of the strongest and most experimental, opening with a mournful harmonica that you might here in a Zeppelin song... but good. Then comes the vocals with a little bit of electric guitar which explodes into an eerie muted wah part with some cool electric pianos and guitars harmonies while Hodgson sings about a boy who is not a big fan of school. This of course escalates to an awesome piano jam with everyone in sync with everybody perfectly, even with the odd jazz chords. The song reaches it' climax then quickly drops out to close. Bloody well right, the signal of the album is also another experimental song with some excellent electric piano in the beginning with tiny half second long bursts of horns. This leads on to a wah solo, and then drenched with saxophone and Hodgson and Davies singing some outrageously British lyrics about how right people are about the huge importance of money. A great fun song that's easy on the ears, but still very "off the map". I've nevr really connected with hide in your shell too much, it's not that is a bad song, it's a great song, but I personally don't attach to the song. With very melancholic lyrics and of course lots of electric piano. The Hodgson vocals are beautiful though, even with the apparent lack of range. Asylum is easily my favorite song on the album, with Davies belting out some awesome lyrics of a snobby man slowly losing his grip on reality and denying it, though he clearly sees it taking over. The song slowly climax's from piano and vocals to a huge crazy ending riff, sounding like a monster slowly creeping towards you. Dreamer, a very funny song, that some people would argue to say that it is too poppy or catchy to even be considered progressive, but I don't care it's hilariously awesome, with Hodgson talking about how much he hates the stupid dreamers he encounters every day. Rudy is a very crazy song, that goes from smooth and jazzy piano to a very rocky and spacey jam session, kinda like what they do on fools overture. The song certainly isnt epic, but the concept behind the lyrics and all the places the music goes definately does constitute one. If everyone was listening is another fun song, but with a more serious attitude about world wide problems or something in that side of the musical cosmos. I'm not sure what to say about this song musically, if you want me to be perfectly honest, I havent really studied this song nearly as much as the others. The title song and closer is obviously the one that has progressive written all over it, about some guys gossiping that the crime of the century is about to happen, and they are wondering how it's gonna go down. This is only about ten lines of lyrics, then the jam session to end all supertramp sessions, starting with simple crying piano chords, then immediatly builds to a simple rock beat, and of course builds on to huge layers of sounds and a million instruments. Then the album ends...

I'm easily most impreesed with Davies masterful classical piano playing, which you can easily here some fiftees swing and jazz in it, which only lets the band experiment of genres while all under the huge umbrella of artistic rock. Hodgsons electric piano's are always great and his subtle guitar playing is that of which Hackett does with early Genesis, precise notes to be played at the perfect moment to fully portray the sound the band is trying to emit... or just get some wka chuks's going on with his wah pedal. The rest of the musicians are mainly just staying firm to their rolls as a rythm player, as I've already mentioned earlier, Benberg's drumming is what keeps supertramp under that "rock" umbrealla I talked about. Honarable mention to Heliwells excellent woodwind playing! Overall...

4 stars