Album Review: Saga - Sagacity

Sagacity is the quality of being wise or having good judgment. After listening to the new album from Saga, I would have thought it meant lazy or annoying. If the band wanted to show some sagacity, they might have written better songs and given a better performance. I've been a fan of the band for quite a while and I do know they have a tendency to release a good album and then a bad album, repeating that cycle. It's been a while since they've released anything remotely classic, so when I read that this album was an effort to sound like their first few albums, I was excited. I was duped.

Sagacity sounds like a very tired old band trying to hard. They have a new young drummer who is so pedestrian, he makes Steve Negus sound like Bill Bruford. Add to that that you really can't hear any keyboards and this is a band KNOWN for layers of keyboards. When you can hear them, there's very little intricacy like they were known for. What you can hear is Ian Crichton, LOUDLY. That wouldn't be bad if he wasn't constantly mimicking the vocal line so you can't always hear Michael Sadler like you might want to.

The main problem is the songs. They suck. There are a handful of tolerable songs but for the most part songs like "It Doesn't Matter," "Press 9," "Wake Up," and even the opener "Let It Slide" are just songs you'd rather skip than be forced to sit through. "Vital Signs," "The Further You Go," and maybe even "On My Way" are the tolerable ones. The rest are forgettable which considering the shit that I can remember, those songs are better off.

This album actually makes the new Yes album seem like a good idea. Bands who have a large catalog should only release new material if it can stack up. An album like Sagacity makes me reconsider ever seeing Saga live because I would not want to have to hear any of this album live. That only means they won't perform songs off those early classic albums of which this album bears no resemblance whatsoever.