Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Artist: Saga
Label: SPV Records
Release: 1994
Rating: 2/5
“Steel Umbrellas” is a prime example of how a sudden itch for quick, easy cash can spawn a half-baked record that’s unworthy of the band’s musical legacy up to that point. How did the legendary Canadian art rockers Saga, within a year of the excellent “The Security Of Illusion” (1993), one of their best records and one that thrilled the vast majority of their fans, manage to come up with such an incomprehensibly weak and unconvincing album? The answer lies in the smell of banknotes, plus a bit of playing around with a new studio. From the very start the project wasn’t conceived as a regular Saga album, and some people still look at it that way today, trying to at least soften the more-than-obvious creative slump. That year the band got an extremely tempting offer to record the score for the short-lived American action TV series “Cobra”, starring Michael Dudikoff (don’t ask…a truly brilliant script for a perfect artistic catastrophe). Once they gave in to the smell of cash and the glitter of Hollywood (luckily for the first and last time in their career), they decided to record music to serve as the soundtrack for individual episodes of the show. In the end only a meager portion of it got used there, and without vocals at that.
Probably none of the band’s followers, after their successful return to prog rock roots on the previous two albums, expected even for a second that they’d swing back to pop. Certainly a shock of its own kind, but far from the main problem of this album, since they’d already proven many times in the past that they can write good pop too. Sad but true: most of the songs on the album sound like the band members weren’t fully putting their hearts into it. The logic of money clearly won out over the artistic drive and exploration that had always pushed them forward until then. You won’t find elements of prog rock this time even with a magnifying glass, because the album is mostly dominated by pop rock/funk, or AOR, with a strong 80s sonic flavor (more heavy use of electronic percussion and synthesizers…in short, artistic regression). Negus’s drums are almost completely castrated this time, Gilmour doesn’t allow himself a single keyboard solo worth mentioning, everything plods along at a mid-tempo, while Ian’s guitar has been deliberately pushed into the background of the production so the album doesn’t sound too punchy. Even Sadler is holding back on his usual firepower and mostly sticks to easy, not-too-high, not-too-low registers. Jim’s bass, meanwhile, mostly noodles around easygoing funky rhythms.
They really did everything to sound as simple and accessible as possible to the wider public. They even hired two female backing vocalists to sound even friendlier to TV/radio airwaves. Of course, there’s no shortage of cheesy love ballads. Sure, they’d dabbled in pop before, but back then their hearts were fully in it and they created works that left a mark on the listener. “Steel Umbrellas”, on the other hand, leaves a big emptiness after every listen, because the vast majority of the songs lack that trademark Saga energy. Still, these are excellent musicians who, even when their hearts aren’t in it and they treat the whole thing as a chance for an easy payday, show that they’re masters of their instruments. So the album isn’t entirely without its bright sparks. Those are mostly the rare moments of inspiration with some jazzy or funky rhythms that are atypical for them. Sadly, the real, progressive Saga is nowhere to be found, and the album ends up sinking in a sea of boring, rather monotonous pop tunes. As a whole, the album sounds like a retro collection of 80s pop clichés and reflects a calculated artistic regression. I’d never have believed Saga could ever sound boring, but “Steel Umbrellas” is living proof. The production, on the other hand, is perfection incarnate, which is one of the album’s few virtues.
The album opens with “Why Not?”, a solid art rocker, the closest of anything here to the classic Saga and as such the best track on the record, even though it also includes that almost clichéd intro motif typical of 80s TV shows. Ian, sadly pushed into the background, rescues the album from total collapse with his recognizably punchy riffs and short solo excursions. Here and there you can spot familiar Saga melodies, but the whole thing is too soft and boxed into pop frameworks. The lyrics are mostly catastrophic, nothing but love-themed clichés. “(You Were) Never Alone” is just as typical a pop rock creation, one that might even have scored them a hit in the 80s, but it would be overblown to compare it to their hits from that time. Those never sounded pathetic and had a dose of the necessary potent energy and experimentalism, which I can’t find here. It’s already a real surprise when a very good guitar solo turns up in it. “Bet On This” is a complete AOR catastrophe with a funky rhythm (everything’s mid-tempo, of course, with Negus behind the drums like he’s half asleep), pointless lyrics and rhythmic repetition that goes nowhere. “Shake That Tree”, sung by keyboardist Jim Gilmour, is one of the brighter moments of the album and an example of one of the few pop songs on it that actually works and even manages to hypnotize the listener. The credit goes mainly to a great multi-part chorus (this time the female backing vocals fit the song perfectly), carried along by an energetic riff and nice ambient synth pads.
Sadly, next comes “Password Pirate/Access Code/Password…”, one of the biggest synth-electronic fiascos they’ve ever made and a disgrace to the band (they never allowed themselves anything like this even in the 80s, when it was still fashionable!). A totally sterile, synthetic rhythm, like it came out of a drum machine, tasteless electronic sounds and a dopey lyric. A strong candidate for one of the worst things they’ve done in their career. “I Walk With You” is a rather cheesy AOR ballad. I’m not used to Saga doing such schmaltzy ballads, but this time even Michael’s vocal sounds inexplicably stripped of his usual expressiveness, and you can really hear that his heart wasn’t fully in it. On the reissue of the album the band swapped, for unknown reasons, the atypical but solid “(Walking) On Thin Ice” for “Push It”. The latter has a promising start with some of that Saga magic the album is missing, though again it’s not one of their trademark pieces. Still, it has at least some of their signature rhythmic movement, the vocal is once again the “real” one, with heart in it, and there are some very solid guitar embellishments too. One of the album’s better moments, showing what they’re capable of when they want to be. “Steamroller” is a rather atypical, almost bizarre funk rock experiment that actually turns out solid in the end. A pure funk rhythm on the bass, the song that best captures the “Hawaiian” spirit of the cover. “Say Goodbye To Hollywood” is yet another romantic ballad, this time with Gilmour on vocals, whose “angelic” voice fits in pretty well. Pretty syrupy, but still somehow digestible. The closing “Feed The Fire” is a real snooze, the same repetitive motif over and over, that funky bass rhythm again that dominates most of the tracks, no connecting narrative in between and an uninteresting chorus. The only breath of the fact that Saga is at heart a prog rock band comes from the good use of electronic percussion in the middle section.
“Steel Umbrellas” is a big artistic fall compared to its predecessor, and an album where Saga simply weren’t their “real” selves, since it was more about making a fun film project than a regular album (to be fair, few rock bands have recorded a soundtrack that also works well as a regular album). “Steel Umbrellas” is a far cry from what this band is capable of. There’s not a single song on it that could convince a newcomer that Saga are an art rock band and not a pop rock band. Saga proved many times that they can do good pop, but this time the itch for a quick buck was clearly too strong. They hoped for big commercial success and greater visibility, but the exact opposite happened. Plenty of fans were disappointed and the album ended up selling poorly. Unless you’re a fan or a collector, give the album a wide berth, because it’s far from the usual Saga standards. The cover best captures the overall spirit of the album, since the latter is most effective as a vacation prop. Among other things, it can come in handy for playing frisbee on the beach, which anyone resembling the person on the cover will surely find a lot more interesting than its sonic content.
Lineup
Michael Sadler – vocals
Ian Crichton – guitar
Jim Crichton – bass, guitar
Jim Gilmour – keyboards, backing vocals, vocals (4,9)
Steve Negus – drums, percussion, keyboards
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Paula Mattioli – backing vocals
Stu Saddoris – backing vocals
Production
Saga
Track list
1. Why Not? (4:18)
2. (You Were) Never Alone (4:27)
3. Bet on This (3:53)
4. Shake That Tree (4:17)
5. Password Pirate/Access Code/Password… (3:35)
6. I Walk With You (4:01)
7. (Walking on) Thin Ice (4:46)
8. Steamroller (4:12)
9. Say Goodbye to Hollywood (4:33)
10. Feed the Fire (4:13)
Album length: 42:15
