GRAVE NEW WORLD

Strawbs was a giant band in Prog Folk genre. They had become "a rival" with Jethro Tull as the best band in Prog Folk since late '60. With Dave Cousins as the leader, they had reached a success and for the information, the legendary Rick Wakeman (known as ex-Yes keyboardist, have succeeded in solo career and the most important thing, one of a few Prog artist who have a great personality as he willingly came to my country, Indonesia) had ever joined this band.

Automatically, they had produced some great albums, especially this one, "Grave New World". I was lucky to get it in Tokyo, the heaven of Prog Music. Just imagine, I just had about two hours to visit Harajuku (you know, at the moment I ran with my father and enter the music store just before they wanted to closed)!!! And my sacrifice was paid enough with their brilliant album.

"Grave New World" was released in 1973, the same year when Jethro Tull released their conceptual album, "A Passion Play". All the songs in this album is good enough. For example, the first song, "Benedictus", was a combination between acoustic guitar, mellotron, and autoharp (it's really a rival for Jethro Tull!!!).

For me, this album is a bit better than Jethro Tull's "A Passion Play". Why? Because you can find a dynamic Folk music in this album. For you, I just advised you to follow your instinct to buy this album. And finally, for Jethro Tull's fans around the world, I'm sorry to say that "Grave New World" was better than "A Passion Play".

Fernandi Gunawan