I'd definitely agree Boston never reached the heights they did on their debut with subsequent albums --- MTAF was such an iconic track I think we all thought the album was going to be mostly filler. Boy was it not!
But I do think that although they sort of lost their way on "Dont look back", they got back on track years later with "Third stage", which is, I think, an underappreciated classic, almost conceptual in its nature, with most of the songs flowing into each other, so that it's basically one long track. Very ambitious for a band who had by then been largely forgotten, or written off as "that band that did More than a feeling", but I think it really worked.
Standout tracks for me were "Cool the engines", "To be a man", and the two ballads "Hollyann" and "Amanda". Great stuff.
Unfortunately they then blew it with "Walk on", but that's another story.
Sorry to hijack your thread!
