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Opus - Up and Down

Opus - Up and Down
I snatched this up when I found it. Up and Down was released in '84 the same year "Live is Life" was a worldwide hit. Polydor repackaged the album, dropped a couple of songs from the European release and tacked on "Live is Life" which for those of us over here was a pretty good idea. I also suspect they subbed out the studio version of "Flyin' High" as well. Despite their success much of the band's catalogue was never released in North America, and even now the band has a surprisingly small digital footprint on the streaming platforms.

The album is really good, and the title track "Up and Down" that opens the album is really strong with Herwig's soaring vocals and Ewald's tasty fretwork. The whole album is full of pleasant soft rock with hints of AOR and some progressive overtones. Knowing there are songs out there that were left off it makes me wonder what they were like. The nine songs here, seven studio tracks and two live songs from their '84 live album are so good. "Live is Life" is still infectious, but it's also out of place here, as is the closing track "Flyin' High" which is something I didn't expect.

insert
The studio tracks were cohesive and needed to flow together. When the live tracks hit at end of each side it's like a postscript. Whoever worked out the new song order was smart enough to not interrupt the flow of the album by inserting the live songs in the middle somewhere. I'm glad they're on the album and this is where they needed to be.

The band:

  • Herwig Rudisser - lead vocals, piano, guitar
  • Ewald Pfleger - guitar, vocals
  • Niki Gruber - bass vocals
  • Kurt Rene Plisnier - keyboards, computers, vocals
  • Gunter Grasmuck - drums, percussion, beat-programming

Admittedly this may not be everyone's cup of tea. It may be a tad generic sounding (at least now with all that came after, one can forget who came first) and Herwig's voice can evoke a bit too much of '70s era Jon Anderson (not really, but I can hear it sometimes) and if you find Jon's voice annoying this will just drive you nuts. 

back cover
I love this kind of stuff, cheese and all. It's actually a little surprising how much I like this. It's really polished but has a little quirkiness to some of the arrangements that keeps things fresh. Opus had their one big moment, and then seemed to disappear but for those who wondered if the band had more to offer the answer is a resounding yes.

You can't stream this one, but you can look for it and it'll be worth the effort.

 

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