Label: Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab (US, Japan, West Germany), MFCD 846
Style: Progressive Rock, Classic Rock
Country: Southend-on-Sea, Essex, England
Time: 35:10
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 200 Mb
And
so the evolution of Robin Trower's importance to Procol Harum reaches
its peak (and, unfortunately, finale). Apparently the band came to the
conclusion that Trower's guitar was indeed the saving grace of Home, so
they took the next logical step and based this album almost completely
around that particular strength. A good half of the album can easily
fall into the hard-rock category, and the tracks that aren't (with one
exception) still feature Trower prominently. I can see where, possibly,
those who fell in love with the band with Shine on Brightly could be
disappointed, as the album, while still more than a bit 'artsy,' gets
away from the basic 'group sound' established on that album.
The
album does have some tracks that don't quite cut the mustard for me, but
not any more than on a typical Procol Harum album, so I'm not
particularly bothered. Of these, the title track is a low point – it's
uncharacteristically built around an unimpressive synth loop, with
nothing great in the vocal melody or lyrics to redeem it (not to mention
no guitar work), and at 3:11 it's easily a good minute-and-a-half
overlong. I'm also not that fond of Luskus Delph – it wants so much to
get by just on 'oh, isn't that pretty,' but aside from the OK vocal
melody, there's simply too little substance (strings and all) to make it
so. And again, what is it with this sudden need on Brooker's part to
use a synth to try and create 'beauty' when he'd already shown his great
skill at using 'traditional' keyboard instruments to do so perfectly
well?
The other six tracks, however, are all aces – they won't fit
one's traditional conception of PH, but they're great nonetheless.
Simple Sister gets the album off to a terrific start, with a great
guitar riff serving as the foundation while Brooker yells his head off
(he isn't the most convincing rocker in the world, but he tries), and a
great instrumental chunk in the middle based around a different
bass/piano riff while Trower first builds the tension with his riffage
and then does a bunch of totally effective and efficient solos, with
strings and horns gradually popping up to remind that this is, in fact,
still Procol Harum you're listening to. It's a weird combination of
materials, definitely, but then I'm all for weirdness when it's a
synonym for originality, and I'd definitely be more than a bit surprised
if there were any other rock songs that quite resembled this little
ditty.
Other high quality hard rock tunes on this album include
Memorial Drive, a great riff-driven groove (with semi-bombastic lyrics
that sound oddly out-of-place but don't hurt anything), Power Failure,
with a neat rolling piano riff augmented by power chords (and some
random 'live' cheering in the middle, for whatever reason), and the
closing Trower-sung Poor Mohammed, which rocks so well that I find
myself desperately wishing that the band could have included more tracks
along these lines and made the album longer. The main riff is just
killer, especially that little slide thing at the end of each iteration,
and I haven't even mentioned the crunchy soloing at the end. Go Robin
go!
(full version: procolharum.com/99/mcferrin_rev-brok-barr.htm)
01. Simple Sister (05:52)
02. Broken Barricades (03:14)
03. Memorial Drive (03:48)
04. Luskus Delph (03:48)
05. Power Failure (04:33)
06. Song For A Dreamer (05:41)
07. Playmate Of The Mouth (05:06)
08. Poor Mohammed (03:05)
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