HOMBURG & OTHER HATS: PROCOL HARUM'S BEST

Procol Harum

Crossover Prog

3.45 | 7 ratings

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Easy Livin
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin

"The weakest man be strong as Samson, When you're being held to ransom"

Procol Harum have not been subject to the level of plundering of their back catalogue for compilations which has plagued other bands. That is not to say they have been completely immune from such releases, but those which have appeared have generally been of a decent quality, and represented their work well.

"Homburg and other hats" illustrates this well. The tracks selected for inclusion here offer an excellent cross section of their work, with a good mix of the familiar and the less well known. With no less than 18 tracks in total, virtually all the space available on a single CD is used.

We have the hits of course, including "A whiter shade of pale", "Homburg", the live version of "Conquistador" (the hit single was the live version from the ESO album), etc. It is though the strength of the other selections which makes this such an attractive proposition. If we are honest, Procol Harum never had the strength in numbers of hit singles to warrant a collection of songs which will all be totally familiar. It is therefore the songs selected to make up the numbers which dictate how representative and indeed successful a PH compilation is.

Here, tracks such as the supremely melodic "Strong as Sampson" and the wonderfully pompous title track from "Grand Hotel" stand proudly alongside their better known peers. Offhand, I cannot come up with any songs which should be here but are not, apart from the prog epic "In held 'twas in I", which was clearly too long to be considered.

In all, a fine collection which offers a pretty accurate oversight of what the band was/is all about.

Easy Livin | 3/5 | 2008-7-2

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