GRAVE NEW WORLD

A great album, one of Strawbs best. After Rick Wakeman left the band was lucky enough to find Blue Weaver, who does a great job on keyboards here, very symphonic , you won´t miss their former bandmate at all! The songwriting is superb, Cousins was very inspired, although I still think that his peak would be in Ghosts. Nevertheless, Grave New World shows the band reaching a new level.

Benedictus and the title track are classics, but the album as a whole works wonders, quite varied and inspired. the production is also better then on previous Strawbs albums. Curiously, founder member Tony Hooper looks the odd man out here. The band sound has become more and more progressive and elaborated, clearly they needed a better guitar player. The other band members were skilled enough to tackle in the new direction, but it seems that Hooper was not (or maybe he simply did not want to go that way). Cousins does some decent electric guitar solos here and there but Hooper, ever the folkish man, is clearly out of place with the new sound. No wonder he left soon after GNW was released.

Anyway, a highly recommended work.