CHICAGO — Chicago V (review)

CHICAGO — Chicago V album cover Album · 1972 · Jazz Related Rock Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
Sean Trane
After closing a first chapter with the then-record-breaking 4-disc set At Carnegie Hall, Chicago settled down a bit and came back with a SINGLE disc affair?.. Yup, that's right! I kid you not!! A one-disc release. With its Carved-in-wood logo, you could expect roughly the same kind of excellent brass ?rock and to some extent, that's what the fans will get, but not just that. This fifth release is completely dominated by keyboardist Lamm who wrote ll but two tracks, although there is no apparent reason for that since the line-up hasn't changed and the songwriting was more equitable between the main four songwriters.

Opening on the immense A Hit By Varese (this is one of the more complex tune of theirs), this fifth album gets as strong a start as previous albums, but alas the following inaptly- titled All Is Well (sounds AOR-ish, with Cetera singing) and the better but not that good Now That You're Gone, the proghead is wondering what's happening to his fave brass-rock group. He's surely relieved with the two-part Dialogue, a great track, where Kath and Cetera sing in dialogue, the second movement they sing together; a bit of a cheesy concept, but the music behind it is quite fine. The side-closing While The City Sleep is a great with Kath's excellent guitar solo, magnified by the horn section behind him.

The flipside starts on the awful hit that will push Chicago down the AOR road. Saturday In The Park will sell many thousands and get much airplay (his was not unusual for the band), but somehow this is the point where things changed for the band. Fortunately for me, the great State Of The Union track rectifies the line (Kath's guitar in the middle of the sound is excellent), confirmed by the other long track (6?mins max) of the album, Goodbye, where the great instrumental interplay is at the service of the song. The closing Alma Mater is a disappointing Kath-penned slow track best forgotten, IMHO.

While the fifth album still holds some superb Chicago-signed tracks, one can only be slightly disappointed by the AOR influence creeping its head out front, and that despite being a single disc, the presence of some weak tracks is a bit alarming. Nevertheless 5 remains a good album, but is nowhere near as essential as its predecessors.

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