THE WHO Face Dances (Warner Bros.)

So the new Who album has finally arrived and it isn’t great. Ah well, it’s no great disappointment either—but it depresses a little when these legendary groups keep releasing albums that are no longer earthshaking or life-changing or even particularly involving. ’Cause even if I’m willing to give up on the idea that there might be rock heroes, I’ll never be very happy with the loss. Still, it’s silly to get depressed about this—a great album from the Who at this point would be like...uh...well ...I’m reminded of the latter day Hitchcock releases, the post-Psycho ones, when each new movie was greeted with a mixture of benevolent disappointment, kneejerk reverence and, from the faithful, awesome leaps of faith which resulted in reams of heartfelt but unconvincing analysis...maybe constructing cross-artist analogies is hopelessly inane, but there’s worse ways of making a point, so here’s more...if The Who By Numbers is Pete Townshend’s Psycho, a stark reaffirmation of his basic virtues, hot on the heels of some epic works and seen thru a darkening glass of maturity and dread, then Quadrophenia is North By Northwest— shooting the works, not for the first time, combining a master’s touch with miscalculated indulgence—and Face Dances is Family Plot, which is to say not great, but much better than we have any right to expect at this point, especially since overfamiliarity with the artists’ best moves has rendered them almost meaningless (this is fun! Who Are You is Mamie ’cause only the faithful can find it in their hearts to praise it. Odds And Sods is / Confess...had enough?).