TIME HONOURED GHOSTS

"Time Honoured Ghosts" is the sixth studio album of Barclay James Harvest and that was released in 1975. After the release of their previous studio album "Everyone Is Everybody Else", it was agreed that the next studio work of the group should be recorded is USA. So, "Time Honoured Ghosts" was recorded at the His Masters Wheels studio in San Francisco. It's a quite decent album, with a bit generic formulaic. Despite it has nothing new, just the usual mix of sweet symphonic songs relieved by some more acoustic and down to earth tracks, it seems better than their previous one.

"Time Honoured Ghosts" has nine tracks. The first track "In My Life" written by John Lees is a great and powerful opener for the album in the same vein of the song "Child Of The Universe" of their previous studio album "Everyone Is Everybody Else". It's a very beautiful song, very melodic and with good lyrics, a great guitar performance with a great guitar riff and it has also a great and nice Mellotron work. The second track "Sweet Jesus" written by Les Holroyd is a very religious oriented song and mainly for that reason displeases many of us. Sincerely, I can respect those ideas and live with that. Musically, it's a song dominated by the acoustic guitar, Hammond organ and nice vocal harmonies that reminds me Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and the Eagles. I like the song and sincerely think that we are in presence of a nice and pleasant song to hear. The third track "Titles" written by John Lees is a lyrical tribute to The Beatles that interwoven some titles of The Beatles songs to make up the lyrics. It's a very beautiful song very well arranged, with beautiful and powerful chorus, very well done and with good taste. It's, in reality, a very simple song with a simple tune as only John Lees can do so well. It's, in reality, a very nice and honest tribute to John Lees' heroes. The fourth track "Jonathan" written by Les Holroyd was inspired by Richard's Bach book "Jonathan Livingstone Seagull", a novel about imposing limitations upon one's self, which used a metaphor of a seagull to illustrate that. Musically is a very nice and delicate ballad extremely mellow and beautiful. It has a very impressive guitar performance, some acoustic and electric, beautiful keyboards in the background and is also very well complemented by drums. The fifth track "Beyond The Grave" written by Woolly Wolstenholme is the contribution to the album from him. It's a very powerful and epic musical composition, probably the most powerful song ever created by the group. It's a magnificent piece of music that grows and grows from an almost inaudible start to an incredible crescendo and in the end the song ends abruptly. It's, without any doubt, one of the best tracks on the album and is for sure the most progressive track on it. The sixth track "Song For You" written by Les Holroyd is typically a rock song. The mainly reference on this song is the electric guitar. Here, the electric guitar can be surprisingly razor and aggressive. This is probably the best contribution of Les Holroyd to the album, although some weak vocal performances from him especially on this song. The seventh track "Hymn For The Children" written by John Lees is a love song written in the spirit of everybody love each other and making of the world a better place. I'm a free mind and I've no problem with the lyrics and the spirit of songs like this. This is a melancholic song which continues a very dear theme to John Lees, especially touched with "Child Of The Universe" included on their previous studio album "Everyone Is Everybody Else". The eighth track "Moongirl" written by Les Holroyd is a very harmonic and beautiful song. This is a true impressive song because is a very simple song which have at the same time a great deep musical quality. It's a very slow song giving us time to enjoy its beautiful melody and harmony. The vocal harmonies are also one of the highest points of this song. The ninth and last track "One Night" written by John Lees is a song which touches the subject of prostitution from the eyes of a world weary client. It tells the story of one night stand with someone with a prostitute view through the eyes of John Lees. This is another John Lees' strong song, mostly acoustic, with interesting and allusive lyrics, and as is usual most often, they're also a bit provocative. This is another fine John Lees' song which closes magnificently this beautiful and well balanced album, in my humble opinion.

Conclusion: As I wrote before when I reviewed "Everyone Is Everybody Else", "Time Honoured Ghosts" is a better studio work than "Everyone Is Everybody Else" is, because it's a more cohesive and a well balanced album. I know "Time Honoured Ghosts" since it was released and I even have a vinyl copy of it purchased in those times. Barclay James Harvest was always a band that I always liked very much, and in addition to "Time Honoured Ghosts", I also have vinyl copies of other albums from them, "Octoberon", "XII", "Eyes Of The Universe" and "Turn Of The Tide", also purchased in those times. By the other hand, "Time Honoured Ghosts" was also my first introduction to Barclay James Harvest. It has certainly improved with age. There are some pretty songs here and Woolly's keyboard playing is in great form. So, in my humble opinion, "Time Honoured Ghosts" is, without any doubt, one of the best works made by them.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)

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