OF QUEUES AND CURES

National Health was a late Canterbury Scene supergroup consisting of Dave Stewart, Pip Pyle, John Greaves, and Phil Miller. It's essentially Hatfield and the North with the addition of Greaves instead of Richard Sinclair. Out of all these talented men that played on this record, I want to quickly say that I personally loved Pip Pyle's performance on all these numbers. I just love Pyle's style as a whole, but here it's very much present all over this thing. Going along now, for the longest time, I avoided much of the main Canterbury Scene bands, but in the past couple of months I've opened up to bands like Hatfield and the North, Moving Gelatin Plates, and obviously National Health. Their second album, Of Queues and Cures, is an absolute masterpiece and possibly one of the last great moments of the classic progressive rock era. Its musicianship, precision, and sheer complexity rival even some of the greatest albums in the scene, and the sprawling song lengths give room for the band to exercise and explore their creative playing and ideas into such stunning tracks. It's perfectly balanced between playful and humorous progressive rock and fast- paced, serious avant-garde jazz fusion. All of this makes for a stellar record that, while a bit hard for some listeners to digest, is a staple for the progressive rock genre as a whole. It's also an impressive achievement, seeing how this is coming off the heels of the amazing self-titled debut they made the same year.

The album begins with The Bryden 2-Step Pt. 1, a lush and powerful melody of fast-paced jazz fusion while mixing avant prog elements into it, all while staying on a positive side. This is an excellent way to start the album and truly shows National Health's creativity when writing. The clean production on this track also puts it out there as one of the Canterbury Scene's finest examples. It's always shifting in different ways everywhere the song goes, keeping the sound fresh and unique from anything else on the song. The instrumental aspects also add more space for the band to experiment in, and they take it to their full advantage. Seriously, it's incredible how the band can go from ambient nature noise to rapid-fire jazz tunes at such volumes in such little time during the first minutes alone. The next song, The Collapso, continues this trend, being much more quirky guitar and drum work. This track is much more laid back while still pushing boundaries and exploring many different wacky instrumentations and structures. Sure, the technicality and quality of the first track aren't here, but this is still an incredible piece. One of the main problems I have with the song, though, is that it is far too short. I know the band was already stretching out what they could fit on a vinyl and that they were running out of space on a singular vinyl, but if it weren't for those limitations and they could've made this song longer, I would've liked it a lot more (as good as it already is). Squarer for Maud is probably the best song on the album, and while it might be one of the longest, the true greatness of this number is revealed more and more as the song progresses. The perfect transition from dark and ominous jazz fusion to lush and powerful avant-rock melodies is truly one of a kind in this song. The structure is also constantly teetering between different strange time signatures and wild jazz experimentation. It's hard for me to state the key perfection this song has, but basically it has every good aspect on this album doubled in terms of quality.

Dreams Wide Awake is the opening on side two and is composed mainly of drum-driven, hard-rocking, progressive rock accompanied by excessively evolving guitar and keyboard solos in the beginning, while the second half has more happy-sounding material similar to what was found on The Bryden 2 Step Pt. 1; it still brings its own unique twists and manic rhythms into the mix. It's another great piece of this record, and while it may be on the weaker side of things, it's still essential to keep this album's flow going. For a while, the next song, called Binoculars, was probably one of my most played songs. It's catchy while staying inside the realm of the band's best music, with the eleven minutes of length giving it length to squeeze wonderful vocal sections with instrumental jamming and individual spotlights on each of the band members talents. It has a neat dynamic between uplifting, soft, and quiet moments and heavy levels of loud and bombastic experimentation that make this song all the better. There is a short interlude called Phl'kat'n before we end off the album in the second part of The Bryden 2 Step, which, as the name implies, continues the musical developments found on the first part. This song definitely focuses less on having an introduction and throws the listener into the wild stuff. Sure, there are some repeating melodies from the first part, but the band manages to stay original and create a whole new atmosphere within this track. It ends off the album magnificently with this great performance.'

In conclusion, every listener of progressive rock needs to hear this marvelous sensation and feel the experience and excitement that is Of Queues and Cures. Literally, this is one of my top favorite albums of all time. Nothing on this record lets me down, and while this might be my second favorite Canterbury Scene album (behind Hatfield and the North's debut), it is impossibly close. I would give this record a perfect 5/5, but I think it's just barely out of reach, mainly because of that eight-second song (if you could call it that), and when talking about perfection, everything matters. My official rating is 4.75/5. I would highly recommend it to all listeners of this genre if you haven't already. It's incredible!

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