V

I may have mentioned before, once or twice, that in my humble opinion Spock's Beard are the best band to ever come from over the pond. Their latest release does nothing at all to make me change that opinion. It took me a little while to get into this album, but once I did then I found that I had real problems trying to listen to anything else. There are a few long numbers, but also some shorter ones. I think that if I had to play one song to try to entice a new fan that it would be one of these, "Thoughts (Part II)". It starts life as a gentle acoustic guitar ballad, but at the end of the introduction Neal puts an edge on his voice as he sings "I thought it might be really great, to show you how I feel inside, but I think, maybe not". This heralds the introduction of the rest of the band, who repeats and then plays around the musical motif. Gradually the pace picks up, and gets more complex then stops dead as the band produce harmony vocals a la Barber Shop form out of nowhere. The song moves from one extreme to another, with the initial phrase returned to twice. It may not be very long, but it is superb.

I am also a big fan of "All On A Sunday" which starts life as a Kansas soundalike, but yet again initial musical perceptions can be misleading and in the case of Spock's Beard downright wrong. Spock's Beard may be the huge fish in a pond that seems to be getting smaller every day, but if the rest of the musical world cannot see what they are missing then that is their loss. Yet another great album from the band that have managed to be prolific without losing quality.

Originally appeared in Feedback #60