IT'LL ALL WORK OUT IN BOOMLAND

I chose this album as my first review because T2's It'll All Work Out In Boomland has a very important meaning for me. It's perhaps the first minor-classic I bought, I remember it like if it was yesterday, a sunny day with my schoolmates in Viareggio, and in a small shop I found that sleeve that I had already seen in a book... So, it's very difficult for me to be objective about this album.

Now that I think of it, I don't want to be objective at all in my reviews.

I won't indulge in technical matters, because I'm not competent enough, but instead I'll try to convey the overall feel of the album, with a longer paragraph for the most significant cut of the album I'm reviewing.

So, this was released in 1970, so it means that the band had bluesy and rock influences, but in this they tried to move a step forward towards..bla blah blah blah...pretty boring uh?

....................... General atmosphere of the album

Once you start to listen to this album, you immediately become aware of the incredible potential of the young guitarist, Keith Cross, who was 17 when the album was released. In fact, the first song, In Circles, features some stingy and aggressive guitar play, but you notice that Peter Dunton's voice wants you to relax and think, despite all the guitar madness going on. Relaxed energy. The vocals are unusually calm for this kind of music. The other kind of ambience that this album brings is lonely introspection. It appears in the strangely titled JLT (it apparently means Joy Little Tune, in spite of the introspection of the lyrics) which express an atmosphere of a summer morning in the country, with the protagonist passing his time in solitude, torturing his own brain with questions Feeling less forgotten than alone/In solitude the time/Passed in several shades of dismay/And glimpses of the truth) This is achieved with a folk instrumentation (acoustic guitar mainly) which accompanies the vocals, until a surprising mellotron section comes: and that's one of the best mellotron tracks I've heard. The two halves of the T2 sound unite for the conclusive Morning. We mentioned morning speaking of JLT, right? Well, the start of the long Morning song is very very similar... delicate folk music which express the sleepyiness of a summer...well...morning. But, later, the electric power of the band comes out and this piece evolves in a improvised freakout, but don't think of a mess... It's fantasy, not noise making. Sudden riffs, cleverly interrupted by folk passages and mellow vocals, and then, to keep your attention high, another stunning guitar solo!

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The most significant track of the album is NO MORE WHITE HORSES. That's a monster track.

This, apparently, as stated in a interview with Peter Dunton, wants to recreate the feeling of dispair and hopelessness felt by the population during the Polish invasion by the german troops. Now that you know it, try to find the references in the song! It opens with a guitar/bass riff which reminds of the marching german troops, who are approaching...you can feel the danger and the menace. This builds to a climax where the trumpets joins the guitar (a trumpet of war?), there is a vibe of tension, when the vocal section finally comes, you almost feel released. But, the vocals convey a sense of despair and terror, as experienced by the population (you got nowhere to hide, there's no white horse to run away). The rest of the song is conducted by the guitar solos, which gradually overwhelm the piano (the violence of war which overwhelms the piano, do you remember that film about the polish pianist during WW2, eh?) The song climaxes in multi tracked noises of triumphant feedbacked guitar, after the echoes of the defeated instruments, which fade away....

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An excellent album, it's a sham that their second album (T2/Fantasy) it's not complete, because the result could have been even superior to this, thanks to the more frequent presence of keyboards (Mellotron), which has only a secondary role here.