OCTOBERON

For me this album is fantastic, a summa of Barclay James Harvest kind of music. It opens with a classic with an optimistic note from the pen of Les Holroyd titled "The World Goes On". This is the first use of the orchestra from Moonwater (1972). Other two Holroyd's' contributions are Believe In Me and Rock'n'Roll Star which is a beautiful live classic for the band, with an obvious reference to the Byrds "So You Wanna Be A Rock'n'Roll Star". It was also compared to the Eagles "One Of These Nights". John Lees' pieces are all very good, expecially the explosive Polk Street Rag, inspired by the porno film Deep Throat, starring Linda Lovelace (Polk Street is in San Francisco's red light district). The final song Suicide? is simply one of the best songs for John Lees. This beautiful ballad, in predominant acoustic guitar, ends with sounds effect of the death of the character of the songs, falling from the top of a building. The question, marked in the titled, underline the central point: did he jump or was he pushed?. Stuart "Wooly" Wolsteholme composition is the epic of ancient Egypt "Ra" wich demonstrates the high synphonic ideas of this great composer.

Octoberon (only n.19 in the U.K. charts) is a title that combine the fact that is the eight album for Barclay james Harvest and the shakespearen character Oberon.

I highly recommend this pearl to all the people who love melodic/synphonic/prog.