ROY HARPER & JIMMY PAGE: WHATEVER HAPPENED TO JUGULA ?

Not to downplay the crisp and satiating production here, it's gratifying to see ROY HARPER return to stripped down and less glossy arrangements for this 1985 release on which the great JIMMY PAGE achieves almost equal billing. The result is a raw yet paradoxically atmospheric album, like "Stormcock" with a preeminent electric/acoustic guitarist, but more Gothic, particularly on the dazzling "Nineteen forty eight ish", "Hope", "Hangman" and "Twentieth Century Man". I think I hear where artists like PAUL BRETT and GORDON GILTRAP may have been influenced vocally and fretfully particularly in their later years. Apart from a few decent but somewhat underwhelming cuts, the album does suffer the affliction of repetition on "Elizabeth" and the weak "Advertisement", something previously unimaginable in the Harper repertoire, but this same tendency also succeeds vividly on "Hangman", so I shouldn't be overly critical or go for the jugula. A triumphant and ageless mid 1980s album.

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