THE AMAZING BLONDEL & A FEW FACES

This was actually the first Amazing Blondel album, but spent most of the last 25 years of the century as one of the most sought after collector items. While it's fair to say that the value of the LP was based more on rarity than quality, this is in fact a very good album.

To recap the history up to this point, most members of the band had been in a group called Methuselah, which issued one fairly heavy psychedelic album featuring several strong themes, some of which can be seen infiltrating this somewhat uneven AB debut. About half the tracks owe more to Methuselah while the other half have that Elizabethan flavour for which the group would become better known, if not exactly household names, through the first part of the 1970s.

This juxtaposition of styles in almost alternate order actually works quite well, with Wincott's more rugged voice on the delightful "Bethel Town Mission" and the somewhat Blood Sweat and Tears influenced "Canaan" contrasting well with Gladwin's more elfin voice on "Saxon Lady" and "Season of the Year". It doesn't hurt that the songwriting and arrangements are already pretty mature, if simultaneously a bit naive. The rousing and raucous closer, "Bastard Love", produces an unlikely combination of the two styles, resulting in a humour that later would only be perceptible from their live shows.

The weaker tracks hint at Blondel's occasional tendency to overestimate the elasticity of some of their material, as in "Shepherd's Song" which is frankly a bore. But on the whole this is a document that is likely to make more than a few faces happy.