SHINE ON BRIGHTLY

With Shine on brightly, Procol Harum took a big step forward, towards being a prog band. The group's second album was released 1968, still before other prog band's had begun. The others were The Moody Blues experimenting with orchestral feeling in their pop music, the psychedelic Pink Floyd and The Nice, developping an organ driven free rock. Also Procal Harum is very organ driven but on this record I think the guitars took more place than before.

A year had gone since the debut and the line-up was the same with Matthew Fisher, Dave Knights, BJ Wilson, Robin Trower, Gary Brooker and Keith Reid. The cover picture I can see shows a person playing a piano and the piano do have an unusual place in Procol Harum's music. If the thoughts go to a piano symphony it's not wrong. Even if the connections with the other prog aren't very strong this is undoubtly symphonic rock as much as(or more than) Genesis.

Especially the more than seventeen minutes long "In held twas in I"(8/10) proves that something had happened with the band. Well it's pretentious and interesting in many ways and the lead melodies are beautiful and this is the most enjoyable minutes of the record. The diffrent parts aren't so coherent and sometimes it feels like the intention was to be experimental. That makes the song only an eight.

"Quite rightly so" gives a fine start with mighty organs, mellotrons but also guitars(8/10) and "Skip softly(My Moonbeams) (8/10) is more experimental with first hard guitars and dark feeling and then changing to happy market day in the end. "Rambling on" too is great, a very pleasant but simple composition (8/10). The title track (7/10) is a track I like but not the best. The most inferior song is "Wish me well" which is too much blues for me(5/10).

Over all, this is a perfect piece of a prog collection and sure a great part of the prog rock history. To me this is better than the debut. There are no hits I lack here, where I just concentrate on the music. Best track: "In held twas in I" Four stars!