Member:
Pnoom
Date:
8/31/2007
I’ve heard plenty of negative sentiments regarding Can’s Saw Delight, and I find that I disagree with most of them. I’ve heard this album called “Can on autopilot” and the sound of “a band that is struggling,” but I’ve also read the far more accurate, “context is everything. If Saw Delight had been released by anybody besides Can, it might have been cited as an essential touchstone in the Krautrock canon.” This is certainly an excellent album, and I’m sure half of the complaints are more that it’s not up to Can standards than that it’s a bad album.
Before we can determine that, however, we must define Can standards. What were Can doing in their glory era? They were experimenting, changing their sound with each release, such that no two albums sound alike. This album certainly fits that bill. Despite their ever-shifting sound, one thing remained constant in Can’s glory era: their love a good groove. If Saw Delight does anything for its almost forty minutes, it grooves. In fact, it grooves from the first second and doesn’t stop until the last. No, the grooves may not be as exciting as say, “Halleluwah,” but they are still excellent and infectious. Yes, this album leans in a more pop direction than previous releases, but it’s very good pop, and, of course, we have the fifteen-minute “Animal Waves” to remind us that this is still Can. Once again, it does not have the glory of their other long pieces, but it is still definitely full of the Can magic.
In addition to being a good album on its own, Saw Delight is a light year or two removed from their previous effort, Flow Motion. All the criticisms I mentioned earlier regarding this album apply to Flow Motion, a lackluster release that had no energy whatsoever, largely because Jaki Liebezeit died on drums. Yes, he played on the album, but he was not the Jaki we grew to love. He returned for Saw Delight, however, and you need only listen to “Animal Waves” to realize that he was still a phenomenal drummer at this time.
In addition to the “return” of Jaki, Saw Delight marked the first major change in the band’s lineup, notably with Czukay dropping bass duties (preferring a short wave radio) and Rosko Gee entering the fold. Gee took the reins on their next album, the reputedly appalling Out of Reach, but here he does not interfere with the Can magic. As for the original members, Irmin Schmidt uses some spacey string instrument synths to add texture to the music where needed, and Michael Karoli shows that he is still a brilliant guitarist.
Despite my defense of this album, however, it would be wrong for me to place it on the same pedestal as their first six (including Delay) studio albums, all of which are stronger. Once you have moved past those, however, the albums Soon Over Babaluma, Landed, and Saw Delight are all good choices to check out Can’s later career. No, it’s not the second coming of Tago Mago, but, honestly, who would want that in an original album. I’m going to give this album a solid B (excellent) rating, and I hope the negativity expressed in other reviews doesn’t deter you from checking out this awesome album. Saw Delight is fun, quirky, catchy, groovy, enjoyable, and, most important of them all, Can. Highly recommended.
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