After Waterloo Lily, Caravan released For Girls Who Grow Plump in the Night as well as the live Caravan and The New Symphonia, both of which I've covered already. So that takes us to Cunning Stunts, Caravan's 6th studio album and their final one for Decca. And it also signifies the end of an era for the great band from Canterbury. Though the band has continued on to this very day, they were never to be the same.
And really, Cunning Stunts signifies more their new beginning versus the past glories. In this way, it represents a different kind of bookend. They've definitely jumped the shark towards pop rock, though there are plenty of elements of their progressive rock predilection. Starting with 'No Backstage Pass', Cunning Stunts offers up an intriguing mix of both styles. This leads to their near side-long epic 'The Dabsong Conshirtoe', a fine energetic effort but faded compared to 'For Richard' or 'Nine Feet Underground'. This is the ride out in the sunset album. If you continue to follow them, you'll receive a Biblical 40 years lost in the desert scenario.
Ownership: CD: 2001 Decca (Japan). Part of the box set of Japanese papersleeves as put out by Disk Union. As with all in the series, this comes with copious liner notes, and 3 bonus tracks. One is the single version of 'Stuck in a Hole'. Another is an unreleased track called 'Keeping Back My Love' which probably should have been part of the album proper. And the big winner here is the 1974 live recording of 'For Richard' which was only previously on the compilation Canterbury Tales. An excellent performance of one of their classics.
LP: 1975 Decca. Single sleeve original picked up online in 2015. This one I probably won't keep, but there's still some runway for it. Historically I bought my first LP copy along with most of the others in 1985 on the US BTM label, which is long sold off.
1//13; 7/20/22 (new entry)
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