THE AMAZING ELSIE EMERALD

Ignoring the misleadingly salacious cover, this reunion of the late 1970s 66.6% of AMAZING BLONDEL (minus John Gladwin who did appear on the "Restoration" comeback in 1997) remains superficially consistent with their product of that bygone age. John "Rabbit" Bundrick even returns as guest on keyboards.

Soft rock is still the stock in trade, but far more uniformly than ever before.. With glossy somnolence this sashays from one mellow string synth-heavy tune to another, and without the counterbalancing of more truly upbeat material, this can presumably only tug at synthesized heart strings because I felt nothing. Overproduction also coats every tune with a sickly syrup of sorts, a presumed prophylactic against melodic and character protrusion. I half expect Pet Clark to start singing after the intro to "Maybe", but why would she bother?

The only track that doesn't sound like a mediocre out-take of their glory years is "Fool's Gold", which could have sat quite well on the "Inspiration" album, and features fine accordion by Wincott. "Next Time" is also decent, but in general you are far better off listening to the "Going where the Music Takes me" compilation if you want more of this ilk.

One mystery is how they could only come up with 34 minutes given the quality, but that's definitely a plus. Amazing, Elsie, in all the worst ways.

It was a sense of nostalgia that led me to catch up on a number of the bands i loved as a teenager of which the Amazing Blondel were one. I bought this album expecting that quirky traditional folk rock sound that i remembered but was surprised to find a laid back slightly jazzy almost eagles style of music. So at first i was disappointed then after one or two more listens i found more and more friends commenting on how much they enjoyed it and realised that I was too. These are well written easy listening pieces that are perfect summer listening. Not a great progrock album but definitely a really good one.