Roxy Music - Stranded (1973)

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Roxy Music - Stranded (1973)

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Without Brian Eno, Roxy Music immediately became less experimental, yet it remained adventurous, as Stranded illustrates. Under the direction of Bryan Ferry, Roxy moved toward relatively straightforward territory, adding greater layers of piano and heavy guitars. Even without the washes of Eno's synthesizers, Roxy's music remains unsettling on occasion, yet in this new incarnation, they favor more measured material, whether it's the reflective "A Song for Europe" or the shifting textures of "Psalm." Even the rockers, such as the surging "Street Life" and the segmented "Mother of Pearl," are distinguished by subtle songwriting that emphasizes both Ferry's tortured glamour and Roxy's increasingly impressive grasp of sonic detail.

by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, AMG

Roxy Music´s third album found the band in a transitional period, when the group lost the very influential Eno and all his synth/tapes experiments (and hence much of the band´s signature sound thus far). With Stranded, Roxy´s music tended to slide more and more towards the mainstream, but it did also maintained the high quality of their material anyway, since Bryan Ferry was still delivering great tunes.

The arrival of such competent players like Eddie Jobson (ex Curved Air) and seasoned bassist John Gustafson as permanent members were a mixed blessing. You see, up till then none of Roxy´s personel was a particulary skillful musician. And that was part of their charm and it worked on their advantage: their approach to rock was free from most cliches that plagued ´serious´ and experienced bands and they more than compensate their lack of virtuosity with lots of creativity and an willingness to experiment.

Two years later they had the chops, but something was missing in the process, and Eno was only one of them. Their slide into a less unpredictable sound was only a matter of time, but they managed to make the long transition with grace. Well, at least Bryan Ferry was still on the top of his form and was still writing great songs. And some of the initial experimentalism stayed on since Jobson was good enough to emulate much of Eno´s manneirisms on the VCS3 synthesizer (ok, not much, but it was better than nothing…). Songs like Street Life, Mother Of Pearl and Just Like You could easily be on the first two albums. The remaining sutff is also good and the only real let down was Psalm, a pseudo, country tinged, gospel song that never works and drags on for 8 minutes.

On the other side we have odd songs like Amazona and the fantastic A Song For Europe, probably one of Roxy´s greatest tunes ever, with a simple, but unforgetable, melody line, inspired lyrics and a powerful, emotional epic ending with Ferry singing verses in latin and french. A real classic!

Production was quite good for the time.

Conclusion: a fine album. Not as good or groundbreaking as the first two, of course, but still of high quality and elegance. Four stars.

by Tarcisio Moura, progarchives

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Roxy Music - Stranded (1973)

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Roxy Music - Stranded (1973)

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