BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST: ONCE AGAIN (1971)
1) She Said; 2) Happy Old
World; 3) Song For The Dying; 4) Galadriel; 5) Mocking Bird; 6) Vanessa
Simmons; 7) Ball And Chain; 8) Lady Loves.
Only their second album, and already they are
taking steps in the wrong direction. Granted, the result no longer sounds like
a bunch of easily guessable tributes — something more uniquely their own is
starting to congeal in the middle of the bubbling broth. But what is it? Is it juicy, or even eatable?
Does it stand competition? Does it show taste? Can we put a finger on it?..
Judging by how much Mellotron and strings there
are out here, the band has finally pitched a stable tent somewhere right next
to the Moody Blues' bastions — dumping their rootsy-rocky avatar (ʽTaking Some
Time Offʼ, ʽGood Love Childʼ) for good. In a way, they had their reasons: the
band's overall «wimpy» visual appearance and overall predilection for artsier
material did not agree well with attempts to «rock out». But on the other hand,
John Lees was a capable rock guitarist
who knew how to swing an axe, and now that he had decided to only swing it in
«epic» mode on ambitious symph-pop compositions, the band clearly lost something.
This time, the heaviest rocker on the album is
actually a blues tune — a Wolstenholme original, somewhat incompetently sporting
the quite unoriginal title of ʽBall
And Chainʼ. Actually, I am not sure what exactly is original about the song's
blues progression, unmemorable vocal lines, or angsty vocals, but all the
guitar work is good: they can play generic
blues with plenty of technicality and energy, it's just that in 1971, if you
wanted the latest and greatest in the blues, you went out and bought yourself
some Led Zep. Or Layla, if you were
still scared o' the devil.
Naturally, much more interesting is the band's
latest batch of symphonic art-pop songs with an epic sweep — Les Holroyd coming
out on top with ʽShe Saidʼ, which has that good old-fashioned «stately
desperation» feel, greatly aided by Lees' distorted wailing guitar parts, also
in the blues vein even though the song itself is written well within the
British folk tradition. The chorus tries very, very, very hard to overwhelm — falling very, very, very short of the mark, because "and I will always love her,
and I will always care" neither qualifies as a great lyric nor as an unforgettably
chanted tagline, but overall, still quite impressive.
The sad, solitary atmosphere is carried over to
the aptly titled ʽSong For The Dyingʼ and, most importantly, to Lees' ʽMocking
Birdʼ, which would go on to become a signature tune for the band and one of
their most frequently performed numbers. The song is said to have begun life as
an acoustic folk ballad in 1968, but now it has matured into a full-scale epic,
with strings, brass, Mellotrons, and guitars that keep building up and up and
up until you start suspecting the boys of having ingested one too many Mahler
symphonies — not that this really sounds
a lot like Mahler, more like Max Steiner or something, still, they do have a
feel for this kind of thing to match the ambition. The lyrics are, again, the
weakest part: "there's a mocking bird, singing songs in the trees" as
the central vocal hook is something that not even James Taylor would probably
allow himself in 1971, and this here tune aspires to so much more.
Lees is also responsible for the shorter folksy
ballads, such as ʽGaladrielʼ (a Tolkien title was imminently unavoidable, I
suppose, even if there are no direct elfish references in the lyrics) and ʽLady
Lovesʼ (which could just as well have been called ʽGaladriel IIʼ, for that
matter) — on the whole, writing approximately two-thirds of the album and consolidating
his grip on the band, but, like I said, mostly at the expense of hard rock
ambitions. On the whole, they clearly intended Once Again to be less «pop» than the Moody Blues — but in their
nobly motivated attempt to put aside not only hard rock riffage, but also any sort of upbeat, mid- or fast-tempo
pop-rock, they created a record that is... well, you have to be in a very lazy, relaxed mood to benefit the
most out of it. Otherwise, the monotonousness might quickly wear you down.
Still, there is no denying neither the
complexity of the occasional arrangement, nor the catchiness of the occasional
vocal flourish or guitar shriek, nor simply the fact that, «once again», it works — the band's combination of folk,
blues, pop, and symphony may be a far cry from the reckless experimentation of
their «progressive» contemporaries, but it is melodic, involving, and manages to
combine pomp with a certain humility of character that was not at all typical
of most of the active players on the scene at the time. Thumbs up.
Check "Once Again" (MP3) on Amazon
No comments:
Post a Comment