Band:	Saga
Album:	The Human Condition
Style:	Progressive rock
Release date:	April 27, 2009
A review by:	Jeff

01. The Human Condition
02. Step Inside
03. Hands Of Time
04. Avalon
05. A Number With A Name
06. Now Is Now
07. Let It Go
08. Crown Of Thorns
09. You Look Good To Me

It's never easy to reborn when your charismatic leader leaves you... Michael Sadles left Saga in 2007 and since that year, the fans were probably not expecting a lot of the future releases. It's always really hard for new singers to find their own place in a band, and extremely hard to be accepted by the fans (no need to talk about the numerous good singers who never find a way to be popular when they replaced some legends, like Halford, Dickinson, Fish and so on...). But it's life and Rob Morrati is the new singer of the Canadian combo and the fans will have to live with it... it shouldn't be so hard because he is good at least!

Rob Morrati is a good replacement obviously and his voice fits perfectly to the Progressive Rock of Saga. The funny thing here is that the band even seems to become more aggressive with time and some songs featured on the release are even near to be Metal! I'm not saying that Saga is becoming a new Dream Theater, they're still a classic Progressive Rock band which directly comes from the 70's but it's good to see that they guys tried to be a bit more modern adding some heavier elements in their music. On the other hand "Human Condition" remains a really classic album which will not open any new ways for the combo. If you like their previous releases, you'll not dislike "Human Condition" but you'll not find something really new (expect this heavier musical side), this is still classic Saga music and in the end this is maybe even a bit boring. "Human Condition" will not be the best release of the band, this is not bad but a bit average with all the clichés of the genre... that's a bit sad actually, despite some obvious effort, the guys didn't find a way to become original. This is never easy of course but can happen when you add new elements and members to a band... This is not the case, the band is not worst or better. They're just following their road without taking a lot of risks...

The problem doesn't come from Rob Morrati as you know. The guy does a good performance on the release like his new band mates actually. This is solid and the production of the release is good but this disturbing feeling of déjà-vu is not cool as you can imagine.... "Human Condition" is not a bad release but an average one which will not give anything new to the Prog fans unfortunately...

Saga will maybe do something good in the future, I believe it actually but I have the feeling too that the band, with its important line-up change is not ready yet to prove that they're still able to do good things. Let's keep an eye on their future albums though, I'm sure that they will find a way to surprise us! "Human Condition" is just tedious, too bad that the band didn't take any risk on this release but if you like classic Prog Rock and Saga, this is not so bad don't worry...