OCTOBERON

After nice, but song oriented "Time Honoured Ghosts", here comes the best Barclay James Harvest studio album since "Once Again", and certainly their greatest progressive effort. Like on no any other album, except famous 1974 "Live", the band succeeded in making characteristic sound atmosphere which is condensed so tight that listener got the feeling that there is no beginning and there is no end to music. The tracks are so leaning on each other that all together seem like one big concept epic. Keyboards soundscapes and guitar weeping, dramatized with orchestration, shared vocal harmonies and strong melodies lifts listener's soul to higher level of contemplation making him nothing but the part of music.

And if I'm allowed, I would make a suggestion to You, no matter if You are old or new to this record, based on purely coincidental reason. Having a recorded cassette tape of "Octoberon", on which both labels were worn out, I actually all the time was listening to B side first, and then the A side. And that was the definitive "Octoberon" to me, with easy introducing "Rock 'n' Roll Star", with "Suicide?" that was no end, but just a psychedelic pause leading into promising "The World Goes on", and then to great "May Day" and misterious and gloriously ending "Ra". When I bought a CD, I was a little bit confused, tried several times, but never used to listen to songs in their real album order, with sudden beginning, real end in the middle and middle at the end, and every time I put "Octoberon" in CD player, I memorize 4-5-6-7 then 1-2-3, sit back, relax and let it all out.

I warmly recommend this 4 stars progressive precious stone to You.