SEASONS

Magna Carta's debut album established them as being dab hands at that sort of Simon & Garfunkel/America/Byrds-esque folk rock, adapting the West Coast sound with more English touches. Here, those gorgeous vocal harmonies are still present, but they lean harder on the touches of traditional material that Simon & Garfunkel utilised early on but evolved away from, as well as producing an honest to goodness progressive folk suite - the first side of the album, "Seasons", being a song-cycle based on the cycle of the year. The use of meditative narration puts me in mind at points of classic Moody Blues material as well.