THE HENRY COW LEGEND [AKA: LEGEND OR LEG END]

Henry Cow on their debut presents a delightful slice of Canterbury Scene. One can expect none of the Psychedelic stuff, rather the instrumental changing compositions of say Egg or Soft Machine. This is achieved through a lovely bass driving each track alongside some sublime guitar and various brass/woodwinds with sprinklings of keys. Oh and who could forget the eclectic drumming firing off a subdued barrage of percussion.

Since this album has other reviews discussing the tracks I'll simply mention some of the ones that really give me an issue.

Teen beat Introduction is the second track and consists of mostly saxophone squealing which is surprisingly ambient and to me very dull. When the song finally begins a lot of energy has been lost for me.

Teenbeat itself is a morphing landscape of sound that ultimately does not warrant the previous four minutes as the track itself has many moments where instruments are dropped for some really boring stripped down sections.

The Tenth Chaffinch is like a sound collage, there are instruments playing music here but I think sound collage describes this one well. Moderately chaotic ambient.

Overall this is a solid album but I think the quality level is not high enough for a better review. In the coming years Henry Cow blossoms into something more befitting of the Avant Prog title, for now Henry Cow plays their brand of Canterbury Scene which is maintained for their follow up album, Unrest, an album I highly recommend over the debut if one wishes to try Henry Cow as it improves upon everything done here.