BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST

Whilst perhaps not as successful as Once Again and Other Short Stories (their second and third albums) this first album of Barclay James Harvest still sounds good today, nearly forty years after its release.

The trademark BJH sound, the beautiful understated melodies, is there in some superb songs such as The Iron Maiden, When the World Was Woken, Mother Dear and The Sun Will Never Shine. This first album, like all of their first four, features the band playing with an orchestra to good effect on a couple of songs: When the World Was Woken and the vibrant Dark Now My Sky.

This latest CD of the remastered album includes 13 extra bonus tracks (!) taken from the band's formative years before the album's release. I prefer to listen to these separately to the album itself because I'm so used to its cohesiveness but there are some excellent songs amongst them such as Brother Thrush, Poor Wages and the beautiful first single Early Morning.

All in all, there's more here than just for hardened fans of the band.