HEARTBREAK HILL [AKA: STARTING OVER]

The 'Heartbreak Hill' CD artwork bears a 1995 copyright date, but these tracks were actually recorded in 1978. The band was coming off a disappointing few years with none of their previous four albums producing any hit singles despite the Dave Cousins/Chas Cronk songwriting duo's concentrated focus on trying to produce radio-friendly tunes. The gamble of back-to-back studio sessions for 'Burning for You' and 'Deadlines' backfired when neither garnered much attention or radio play, and by 1978 Cousins was vacillating between being in or out of the band and both part-time keyboardists (John Mealing and Robert Kirby) were gone. Cousins managed to sign a young Andy Richards to fill the 'permanent' keyboard slot long vacated by John Hawken and the group returned to the studio but scheduling conflicts with guitarist Dave Lambert led to his departure almost immediately and even Cousins split before a record deal could be cut, and in the end it would be seventeen years before the final product would find its way to release.

Besides Richards the group also invited another young up-and-comer in guitarist Jo Partridge, fresh off a tour supporting Elton John's 'Blue Moves' album which like many Elton John albums was produced by Gus Dudgeon, who had also produced the first Strawbs studio record. Small world. Partridge provided the lead guitar tracks for most of the songs on this album except the opener which Lambert played on before leaving.

The musical style of most of this album is a radical departure from the commercially- oriented stuff the band had been cranking out for most the few prior years. There are definite hints of the electric folk-rock sounds of their early seventies work, and more than a little comparison to bands like Jethro Tull around the same period (eg., heavier electric guitar mixed with ambitious keyboard forays and haunting, story-telling lyrics). "Something For Nothing", "Starting Over" and the title track are exquisitely bombastic works that just about any progressive rock fan would find appealing, and most of the shorter, more subdued songs like "Another Day Without You" and "Two Separate People" are thick with acoustic instrumentation, layered keyboards and lilting piano passages.

Even the one rocker ("Desert Song") is very much in the Strawbs style with a cheeky tale of a young lass being seduced by a Bedouin prince and left savoring the memory in his empty tent. Love 'em and leave 'em indeed!

This is a much better album than its belated release and non-existent promotion would suggest. Were it not for the upheaval in the band and its management at the time one has to wonder if this would have been the record that reinvigorated the band and their fans and led to future success as the seventies wound to a close. We'll never know, but at least the music is around to enjoy and reflect on today. These tracks were remastered in 2006 and released on Witchwood Records as a 'platinum' edition with a bonus version of "Something for Nothing". That edition is a bit pricey, but there's also a stripped-down ('non- platinum') version of the remastered album as well as several other CD reissues of dubious origin available today. For any Strawbs fan this is a must-have, and for anyone even remotely interested in the band it definitely falls into the highly-recommended category. I'm going to go out on a limb with four stars here. While these tracks don't reach the depth of complexity and vibrancy of the classic Strawbs studio releases, they do show what they were still capable of even as the group and their support structure (management and record label) crumbled around them. Well worth the investment of both your time and money.

peace