Saga - Trust

Saga

Trust
2006 Inside-Out/SPV
(CD/DVD special edition)

If I had guilty musical pleasures (which I don't because I freely admit to listening to a lot of random stuff), Saga would be one of them. A weird solution of neo-prog and AOR, Saga is where Mr. Mister, 80s period Rush & Yes, Asia and Queensryche all commingle. It is shamelessly accessible, yet overwrought in all the ways that annoy hipsters and casual pop monkey fans (i.e. top 40). We are talking masses of sequencers and keyboards, guitar pyrotechnics that pull from Satriani to Holdsworth, and overdubs galore in a glossy production shell (the group has worked with knob-twiddlers like Rupert Hine and Keith Olsen).1

After a few albums in a holding pattern (with the last studio album, Network, being not particularly memorable) , and a rather odd double live concept album, this is probably the most impressive studio release since the return in 1991 of keyboardist Jim Gilmour.2

It is a melodic, riff-happy album, and very much a direct update of their early 80s sound. Ian Crichton's guitar tone is still a balance of clean metallic ring and distorted crunch. His solos are inventive, and his regular use of false/pinched harmonics and sustain is very evident. A very underrated player. The keyboards are dense (as one would expect from a band that live sometimes has Gilmour and vocalist Michael Sadler on side by side, and bassist Jim Crichton on bass synths), but not in the Rick Wakeman tradition of overbearing solos. Gilmour is an accompanist, and works with textures and sequences most of the time.

Lyrically they are still not going to be a challenge to Bob Dylan or Fish anytime soon, but still are not as pompous and asinine as Dream Theater. Saga still keeps most of their content rooted in the personal.

Stand out cuts would be I'm OK, Time To Play, Footsteps in the Hall and album closer On The Other Side.

There are two versions, a single cd version and a cd with bonus "making of" dvd (a tad short, but it only adds a few dollars to the cost, so could be arguably worth it), both sporting a decent cd package/design. Their last several albums also had been suffering from a very dated looking art direction, and this is just one of those other improvements that leaves a better overall feeling about buying this.

1. Rupert Hine made his name with The Fixx, Rush and Suzanne Vega, as well as his own project, Thinkman. Olsen has worked with bands like the Scorpions, Fleetwood Mac and Whitesnake).

2. The band had 2 albums in the late 90s as a trio, with a more guitar oriented fusion sound, with The Beginners Guide to Throwing Shapes being a highlight and possibly their best album overall. The doubl concept album was a collection of tracks from all their previous albums that were based on an extended storyline, told initially out of sequence. All of the cuts have the subtitle of Chapter with a numerical designation.