Caravan: The Unauthorized Breakfast Item

CARAVAN: THE UNAUTHORISED BREAKFAST ITEM (2003)

1) Smoking Gun; 2) Revenge; 3) The Unauthorised Breakfast Item; 4) Tell Me Why; 5) It's Getting A Whole Lot Better; 6) Head Above The Clouds; 7) Straight Through The Heart; 8) Wild West Street; 9) Nowhere To Hide; 10) Linders Field.

The Battle Of Hastings, with its subtle, but special atmosphere of cold melancholy and nostalgia, could have been a highly appropriate and intelligent last goodbye for Caravan — one of those nice turns of events when a formerly great and then degenerated band comes together for one last statement; not a huge one, but reflecting a certain degree of wisdom and experience. Too often, however, the temptation to mistake a successful «last goodbye» for a sign of self-permission to go on recording new stuff, so to speak, becomes impossible to overcome. And thus, at the turn of the new millennium, Caravan come together once again — to make a record that, to me at least, sounds completely superfluous.

Again, this lineup only includes Hastings and Coughlan from the original band, although Dave Sinclair was still a member when they went into the studio: he contributes and plays on ʽNowhere To Hideʼ. Reportedly, though, he split with the band again over «creative differences», and all the other tracks feature Jan Schelhaas, the band's old keyboard player from the Blind Dog At St. Dunstan's period. Richardson and Leverton reprise their roles from The Battle Of Hastings, and an extra lead guitarist, Doug Boyle (who'd previously played with Robert Plant's band) is brought over to lend a hand. With the Hastings / Richardson / Schelhaas core, you might faintly expect them to deliver another Blind Dog — unfortunately, instead of this they deliver another Better By Far, albeit with some technical flaws that were typical of the late 1970s corrected and repla­ced with some technical flaws that are typical of the early 2000s.

If you have heard the opening track, ʽSmoking Gunʼ, you have already assessed the overall sound of the record — grimly optimistic pop music created by prog survivors and released in a world where neither distorted guitars nor cosmic-sounding electronic sounds no longer make anybody bat an eye just because they are, you know, distorted and/or cosmic-sounding. It's a nice sound, but it no longer has the added bonus of The Battle's world-weariness, because these guys have survived their mid-life crises and seem fairly happy now to occupy their parliamentary seats in the post-prog world of elder(ly) statesmen — making professional, but pizzazz-free music. The production is marvelous: all the most subtle guitar overtones reveal themselves instantaneously. There is hardly anything substantial behind that production, though. The second track, ʽRevengeʼ, sounds almost exactly like the first one, and that is just the beginning.

Eventually, after about four numbers that are completely interchangeable, they arrive at a point where they remember that they used to be a progressive band with long-winded epics, and begin to pump out 7-8-minute long epics that, unfortunately, fall more into the «adult contemporary» pattern than into the «progressive rock» scheme (amusingly, something very similar had earlier happened to Genesis, with their pseudo-prog monsters like ʽDriving The Last Spikeʼ, etc.). ʽIt's Getting A Whole Lot Betterʼ, for instance, is an unmemorable chunk of smooth blues-jazz with Kenny G-style sax solos; ʽHead Above The Cloudsʼ is at least speedier, but essentially it's the same smooth jazz taken at a faster tempo. One might have hoped that ʽNowhere To Hideʼ, the only track left behind by Dave Sinclair (and sung by Jim Leverton rather than Hastings), would be better — but its first half is exactly the same jazz-pop as everything else, and its second half largely consists of a fusion synth solo from Sinclair that sounds like... well, I have no idea why I should be listening to any of this instead of, say, Al Di Meola. At least Al Di Meola had pyro­tech

nics. Why should you need Al Di Meola-like music without pyrotechnics?

In the end, the only track that has shown a few signs of life to me was the instrumental finale, ʽLinders Fieldʼ, mainly because they hit upon a different kind of sound here — multi-tracked folksy jangle mixed with smooth, ambient-like keyboards. It's a pretty and unassuming coda with a curious (probably unintentional) psychedelic effect on the brain. But having to sit through 50 minutes of professional, clear-sounding, thoroughly monotonous, humorless, and essentially meaningless adult pop to get to it? Honestly, I'd much rather live my life knowing that the door on Caravan was slammed with the last power chord of ʽI Know Why You're Laughingʼ. Recommended only for major Pye fans and hardcore sentimentalists; for everybody else, definitely a thumbs down.