SAGA - Hop or Top ... again unfortunately both times

Reasons to buy the new Saga is - in addition to curiosity, what they have done wrong this time again - at least for the first few years Saga fans the extra CD with 9 classics live. Again and again pure goose bumps, even if already banned umpteen times on CD, as well as Sadlers same old, carved in concrete Publikumsspielchen and sayings.
With dervish drummer Mike Thorn the old gentlemen live again on to peak performance, the energetically played masterpieces of early era not hear her over 30 years. Only with `The Cross`hat a title .... eingemogelt from the experimental era of Generation 13 here drummers Thorn can live properly ....

Otherwise, only 8 classic early stage are 78 to 83 served ... Saga is live still a class of its own!

Now for the new output:

Get back to basics has indicated .... even with a fantasy cover old style SAGA is suggested original ..... unfortunately mostly non-existent.
Once again, the gentlemen have tried on a Pop / Rock / Melodic / Progressive mix which verspüht not the charm, melodiousness, the Charma the first 5 albums, but rather to the 'we are looking for new phase after Ufern` recalls.

One wants to retro and modern, melodic and progressive sound, and sits again between two stools ..., with heavy guitars (Let It Slide, Wake up), thread hymns that do not make it about children's song-level (press 9) or progressively confused Parts ..... many Crichton solos, obliquely as he used to be unrelated to the accompanying bass lines or harmonies (Luck), it sounds banal partially (as it has the cruel `It doesnt matter ... bad sung by Jim Gilmour, managed only on the album ??)

Many trivial, banal verse parts are just waiting to be delivered from a pseudo-melodic chorus (The Further you go) ... as one would like to press more than once the `Forward` button and wonders who has let it go.

Sure you have to get in the Listen-matter, but acts much effort and not round, stylistic bonds earlier at structures albums let a short sit up, but on many ingenious moment follow sections with an outside producer Rupert Hine as so not sure on the album had come.

A low-quality sound production as stated by some, I could not ausmachen.Es sounds fat and punchy ....

Conclusion: Many interesting ideas mingle with the banal and immature Parts and Arrangements.Lücken be filled with tangled, incoherent solos, it does not adjust the homogeneity of the epic also quite very different first five albums.
But worth mentioning is certainly Michael Sadler's voice that just do not seem to age.

OK, it sounds mostly like a typical saga, with a few new stylistic experiments.
(Go with the Flow ... Saga goes Jethro Tull ???) ... and if you do not wear your standard of brilliant early phase of the band, is a mixed in the whole saga album in which to discover exciting, but are to endure Banalales and Unripe.