FULL CIRCLE

The thing that actually kind of creeps me out about this album is how similar the sounds are to any number of paisley underground bands from the early eighties. Green on Red, the Long Ryders, the Leaving Trains, Rain Parade, the Three O’Clock, and even the Golden Palominos to a certain extent. These are bands that I took a liking to when progressive music went to sh!t around 1979. Asia and Marillion just weren’t enough to quench the thirst for new music, and R.E.M. only put out an album every year and a half or so, so the proto-alt.country sound of the Paisley Underground set was a great appeal for a kid from the mountains who’d grown up with plenty of American country music and had an appreciation for steel guitar and psych treatments on Heartland folk standards. Imagine my surprise the first time I listened to this reissue of a Woodstock-era Abbey Road record by a trio of British wyrd folk and heard some of those same sounds a full decade before they appeared in Los Angeles studio’s with American country rockers playing them!

There are a few obvious reasons for the comparison. First, the opening track “Hawk the Hawker” features the late Gordon Huntley on steel guitar, not the kind of instrument you’d expect from an early seventies British acoustic folk band. There’s also a noticeable thread of harmonica and whistles floating across the arrangement, and the net effect the first time I heard it was to instantly remind me of “Honest Man” from Green on Red’s 1985 album ‘No Free Lunch’. Sure, the vocal accents are different and the paisley bands tended to have a rougher edge since most of them came out of the west coast punk days of the latter seventies, but the folkish guitar, slightly off-key vocals, and character sketch lyrics have an uncanny resemblance to the first couple of tracks on Forest’s last album. Huntley by the way was much in demand as a session player around this time, having appeared with Whistler, Elton John (‘Tumbleweed Connection’), Rod Stewart (‘Never a Dull Moment’), and as a member of Ian Matthew’s long-standing project Southern Comfort. I didn’t realize he had passed on until I listened to this album and did a bit of research. Rest in peace Gordon.

“Bluebell Dance” also has a slightly psych sound that was so prevalent in the eighties paisley music, although again this is undeniably folk-inspired and much more mellow than most of those bands. Same goes for “The Midnight Hanging of a Runaway Serf” and “Do Not Walk In The Rain”. The vocals on those two songs have driven me a bit mad trying to recall who they remind me of, but there’s definitely someone. Maybe somebody who reads this can make the connection. The electric harpsichord from the band’s debut is present here as well, and makes for a much more folk-leaning sound than the traditional piano that is also present.

Apparently the trio took a different approach on this last album, with each of the members contributing ideas and compositions that led in slightly different directions. The result is an album that plays much more like a sampler than did the contiguous theme of their debut. This isn’t nearly as much of a folk album as the first, although the mandolin, acoustic guitar and flute keep the sound in that general vein. This is especially true of the acoustic guitar-driven instrumental “To Julie” and the mandolin-heavy “Gypsy Girl & Rambleaway”.

“Much Ado About Nothing”, “Graveyard” and “Famine Song” play more like traditional British folk, especially “Famine Song” which is mostly a capella and leans a bit to a Celtic bent.

The closing “Autumn Childhood” is a bit of a throwback to the late sixties, with bard-like story-telling vocals and gentle acoustic guitar and mandolin that pick up for a while and add harmonica for a coffee-shop folk mood. This is also the longest track Forest ever recorded to the best of my knowledge, clocking in at more than six minutes.

While the first Forest album is undeniably British folk steeped in sixties sensibilities, this one is more forward-looking and experimental. It’s a good album, but I can’t say it is great. Three stars for the courage to take some chances, but not quite as good as their debut. The band hung on for a year or so after this released, but the times they had a’ changed and the direction of progressive and folk music had already passed these guys by the time they released this album (although the spirit of the music seems to have resurfaced on the American west coast a decade later). Recommended to prog folk fans mostly, and worth a spin or two if you come across it.

peace