TIME AND TIDE

Greenslade has been somewhat peculiar in being a quartet with two keyboardists, and not in the usual arrangement of most keyboard duos where one mostly play piano and harpsichord and the other plays organ and synths, but two keyboardists that play everything. You would expect that there would be lots of instrumental passages in this album, but it is not the case.

If anything, the fact that the album is very short (a little bit over 30 minutes) and has ten songs already tells something about what Time and Tide has to offer. It could have worked, though, if there wasn't only one song with prog credentials. The instrumental Catalan is not the most inventive thing made by Greenslade, but at least it has some great solos, although the repetitive main theme is a bit boring. If the album had three or four songs like it, coupled with short instrumentals like Time (not really a instrumental since it has a choral), Tide and Gangsters, it could have been a great album.

However, the only other song that is really interesting apart from the aforementioned ones is The Ass' Ears, which is not long, but has great playing. The rest ranges from failed experiments to straight pop songs with occasional five second instrumental flourishes that add nothing really important.

Maybe the best thing about Time and Tide is that the band broke up afterwards, since, while still mostly enjoyable, Time and Tide shows that Greenslade (the band, the musician would release a better solo album in the following year) had ran out of ideas and was not able to work on the songs enough to make a consistent release and even the short instrumentals, barely filled the record with 30 minutes of music. As they proved that pop rock was not their thing as well, the best thing was to call quits.

It is not a bad album, and maybe except for a couple of songs, the prog fan will not ask himself "why I am even listening to this?", but it is not something essential either.