THE WELL'S ON FIRE

Now I have come to the end of my Procol Harum journey. Their eleventh record "The Well's on fire" was released 2003, now ten years ago, twelve years since their last one and now they were up to a one more well produced rock record that surprised me in the end. The cover shows six flaming Tellus globes.

The record is an hour long, too much I think; without some of the least interesting songs the result would have been better. The band made up by Gary Brooker(vocals, piano), Mark Brzezicki(drums), Matthew Fisher(hammond organ), Matt Pegg(badd), Keith Reid(words) and Geoff Whitehorn(guitars). This album probes an improvement since "Prodigal Stranger". This one is more progressive(in the end) and has some of the flavours of the earliest sixties Procol Harum. Unfortunately these interesting tracks come quite late on the album. Many listeners perhaps become tired with what's before.

"Weisselklenzenacht" is the best track on the album, absolutely(8/10). It's instrumental, brave and progressive and gives us the organ we heard on "A whiter shade of pale". "The Emperor's New Clothes"(8/10) is also one of the very best Procol Harum tracks. The melody is mystical and Brooker sings very good, "So far behind"(7/10) also intrigues us with a superb melody and "Fellow Travellers"(7/10) also reminds us of "A whiter shade of pale". It is an adaption of Händel's "Lascia ch'io pianga" melody which Procol Harum does very well.

Many of the other songs are pleasant and worth hearing such as "An old English dream"(6/10) and the rocky "Wall Street Blues"(6/10) or edge "Every dog will have his day"(6/10). I am not very found of the tracks: 3, 4 and 6 but the rest is worth their place.

Procol Harum was never and will probarly not ever be one of my favourite bands. Their pretentions were to small for me. Still they always did nice music and a pair of songs from every record should be picked out for their splendor and sometimes progressive ingredients. The Well's on Fire has "The Emperor's New Clothes" and "Weisselklenzenacht" to be proud of. Three stars!