BRIAN AUGER — A Better Land (as Brian Auger's Oblivion Express) (review)

BRIAN AUGER — A Better Land (as Brian Auger's Oblivion Express) album cover

Album · 1971 · Pop/Art Song/Folk

2/5 · 2011-04-25
Sean Trane

Usually regarded by specialists (and rightly so) as Oblivion Express’ weaker album, A Better Land is not really as bad as one could think of, but it suffers from its predecessor and follow-up album’s proximity. Certainly after their astounding debut album, nobody expected such a calm and bland album as a confirmation (it would come with the aptly-titled Second Wind). A band afraid to sound like they are unable to progress, maybe, but certainly unable to avoid the second album jinx. I’m not sure why they changed their winning formula, but one thing is sure… they reverted to it after this fiasco. I’ll try to be more positive, because this album is really not as bad as all the negativity would have you believe: it’s just different, very different!! Obviously aimed at west coast soft rock, this album might have even scored big time sales-wise had a real obvious hit come out of it. Another reason why this album sounds so different is that Mullen is from far the most active songwriter, dealing with outsider Mackie and Garrie. ABL is not one of Eddie Offord’s better prog productions, to say the least.

One thing that strikes as the needle soothes itself into the groove, is how much calmer this album is as Dawn Of Another Day starts gently building up with Mullen’s nice acoustic guitar and Mc Intosh’s percussive percussion, with our favourite Ogre calmly toying away on his Fender Rhodes. The Mullen-arranged Murai’s Wedding and the following Trouble (obviously Murai’s divorce ;o)) could easily be on any C, S, N, CS, SN, CN or even CSN album. Returning to better waters (or lands if you so wish), Women Of The Seasons still holds that West Coast sound, but Auger’s keys (Fender Rhodes and others) make it closer to Steely Dan realm, The rather dated Fill Your Head with laughter sounds like an early Traffic (Mr Fantasy era), but sticks out for this album. The following Thinking It Over sounds like a “carambolage” (look it up >> it’s a great French word) between Oblivion express, America, Steely Dan, with some space for interplay. Tomorrow City offers some good moments, but has no means to stand out from the rest of the album, even though it’s the only Auger-only composition. After the insipid All The Time There Is, the album ends on the title track, which although it lacks Brian’s usual energy to allow Mullen’s guitar to front the band, is maybe the album’s best moment.

Graced with a gorgeous drawn pastoral artwork (yes, it is railway related if you take time to look enough) ABL would not be a disgrace in Steely Dan’s discography, or even if it was a CSN album, and it would be called America’s masterpiece had it been theirs. I suppose I could sum it up by saying that ABL is a Mullen album, not a Auger album. So with the usual “mise en garde”, I’ll round up to the upper star unit, thus giving a “good but hardly essential (at all)” rating, partly I’ll admit it, to save it from a too low (and unfair) average that it’s bound to gather.