NOW WE ARE SIX

This is an album of great highs and truly dreadful lows; indeed there are 3 tracks that would make any best of compilation and 3 that should never have been recorded, with the rest somewhere in between. It also marks the end of the folk-rock phase of Steeleye, with the introduction of a full time drummer and a greater emphasis on the rock they would now be describes as a rock-folk band.

Don't get me wrong - the opener Thomas the Rhymer is a rocky track and absolutely magnificent with a chorus you have got to sing along with; the two tracks which follow are perfectly pleasant but the 4th is dire and best skipped. Then comes the sinister Seven Hundred Elves, one of my favourite Steeleye tracks. Side 2 opens with the sad Long a Growing, a fine slow song, before exploding into brilliant life with The Mooncoin Jig, the sort of traditional folk jig full of mandolin and banjo at which Steeleye excel. Edwin is another pleasant slower, sad song but the album ends with two horrendous and superfluous tracks.

This really isn't up to the standard of the marvellous albums that went before (Below the Salt and Parcel of Rogues) but it still is worth buying just for the 3 bits of brilliance. And for Maddy Prior's lovely voice, of course!