Review: Roxy Music – Country Life (1974)

Country Life is the fourth studio album by Roxy Music, founded in 1970.

Country Life is an impressive follow-up from the same line-up that made Roxy Music’s previous album, the masterful Stranded (1973). Stylistically, Country Life continues along the lines of its predecessor, but is more uneven in quality and more musically straightforward.

The album opens with the furiously intense, roaring epic rock track ”The Thrill Of It All”. Packed full of small details in the arrangement, the song thunders onwards, propelled by Johnny Gustafson’s magnificent bassline, like a truck without brakes. ”The Thrill Of It All” is, as its name suggests, a thrilling and exciting listen.

After a couple of slightly more mediocre tracks, Country Life serves up one of Roxy Music’s finer songs, vocalist Bryan Ferry and guitarist Phil Manzanera’s ”Out Of The Blue”, with Andy Mackay’s ominous three-note oboe riff playing a central role. Manzanera’s guitar playing is also superb, but is inevitably overshadowed when the virtuoso Eddie Jobson is let loose with his violin at the end of the song. Jobson’s wild fiddle playing is very catchy and ends the song with a great electronic effect that sort of blasts the song into the ether. Live, ”Out Of The Blue” was even more effective than the studio version. Especially the following year when John Wetton of the recently disbanded King Crimson joined the band and got to abuse his bass on the song. I have to say, though, there’s nothing wrong with Johnny Gustafson’s original funky bass line. On the contrary! The live versions of ”Out Of The Blue” were as close as Roxy Music ever got to the heart of progressive rock.

The third highlight of the album is the fateful ballad ”Bitter-Sweet”, co-written by Mackay and Ferry, which is Ferry at his core. ”Bitter-Sweet” is exactly the kind of song Ferry is made to sing. The mood of these songs is usually bittersweet, and this time that mood was spelled out right down to the song title. In the highlight of the previous album, ”Song For Europe”, of which ”Bitter-Sweet” is a sort of sister song, Ferry sang in French at the end, with a pathetic flourish. In ”Bitter-Sweet”, towards the end, he lets loose with a booming German articulation. A good trick is worth doing twice, especially if you can add another twist. Roxy Music did and it works beautifully.

The German translation of Ferry’s ”Bitter-Sweet” lyrics was done by the women on the rather cheesy cover of the album, Constanze Karoli, sister of Can guitarist Michael Karol, and Eveline Grunwald, girlfriend of the same krautrock guru. On the cover, the women appear looking terrified, almost naked, in transparent underwear and with very heavy make-up. One explanation on the cover has been: ’They are meant to be fashion models that have run away from an estate, and caught in the headlights of a car.’ Ok…. In Puritan America, of course, this didn’t go down well and Country Life was published there with a rather strange cover version. The American version has only a bush on the cover. I mean a real bush, not anything to do with transparent panties. And the bush on the cover is actually the one that Karoli and Grunwald are naked in front of on the original cover.

Although Country Life is Rocy Music’s most conventional album to date, there is one real oddity. Reminiscent of medieval church music, Ferry’s ’Triptych’ sounds almost Gentle Giant with its flutes and harpsichord. It’s an unusual piece that doesn’t quite work seamlessly, but it’s definitely an interesting and bold experiment from a rock band like Roxy Music. Being Roxy Music, it’s hard to say how seriously the song was made, but never mind as long as it sounds good.

A good example of Country Life’s contrasts is how smoothly the album moves from the devotional moods of ”Triptych” to the very raucously rocking ”Casanova”. This juxtaposition in some strange way makes both extremes seem the more delicious.

Not a glimmer
Now you’re nothing
But second hand
In glove
With second rate now
Now you’re flirting
With heroin
Or is it cocaine?
Casanova

Many people seem to point to the closing track ”Prairie Rose” as the special gem of the album, but I can’t really get anything out of it, apart from Gustafson’s fine bass playing. It’s a rather mediocre rock song.

With Country Life, Roxy Music has for the first time on their album some rather uninteresting songs, the worst example being the bluesy ”If It Takes All Night” which with its tavern piano even reminds a bit of ELP’s humour songs, but Roxy Music doesn’t know how to stop in time and stretches the song to three minutes, while ELP at least understood how to keep these songs as tight two-minute rallies.

Despite its unevenness, Country Life is a clear winner because its best bits are so delicious. Around half of the ten tracks on the album are absolutely pristine while the other half ranges from okay to rather bland. Country Life, however, sadly predicted Roxy Music’s future in the sense that from then on, album after album of great songs dwindled until by the late 70s there were none at all. For a few years, however, Roxy Music was a complete art rock band and its members have since left a rich mark on progressive music, also through their interesting solo careers.

Best tracks: ”The Thrill Of It All”, ”Out Of The Blue”, ”Bitter-Sweet”, ”Casanova”, ”A Really Good Time”

Author: JANNE YLIRUUSI

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Tracks:

1. The Thrill Of It All 6:23
2. Three And Nine 4:01
3. All I Want Is You 2:50
4. Out Of The Blue 4:40
5. If It Takes All Night 3:09
6. Bitter-Sweet 4:57
7. Triptych 3:09
8. Casanova 3:23
9. A Really Good Time 3:44
10. Prairie Rose 5:13

Bryan Ferry: vocals, keyboards, harmonica John Gustafson: bass Eddie Jobson: strings, keyboards Andy Mackay: oboe, sax Phil Manzanera: guitar Paul Thompson: drums

Producer: Chris Thomas, John Punter, Roxy Music

Label: Island

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