... AND OTHER SHORT STORIES

Third album from BJH, this one pretending that they've had longer stories to say, of which I am totally unaware. Aside this nit-picking, the album comes with a totally un-committing cover artwork that announces fairly well the equally un-committing contents on the disc. Indeed if Once Again had shown vast improvement and promised much more for the future, it is pretty hard to see where they managed this.

One neutral observer might even suggest a regression of some kind, although not returning to the debut's mess. I will therefore provide you with exhibit A to prove my point, the regression of group- written tracks to 2 (down from 4) and the fact that the songwriters tend to hog the main roles in their compositions: in Les Holroyd's two tracks, he plays almost everything except drums and allows Wooly and Lees to just vocalize,; to which replied Wooly on Ursula. Plenty of fillers like Someone There You Know, Harry's Song (where the group play as a trio) and second-rate material still unable to hide their inspiration (ex; Ursula is Lennon Beatles inspiration)

The album started well enough on the heavily orchestrated Medicine Man, a song that starts on impressive cellos, before the rest of the orchestra joins in gradually to render the song close to cheddar valley. The only noteworthy track on the A-side, the rest is fillers or duds. As for the flipside, it starts with the very promising West-coast-sounding Song With No Meaning and those CSN&Y harmonies, but it's so far only the second track worth retaining. On a completely different realm with the atypical and interminable Blue Johns Blues, a track that shows the band can indeed sound louder, but certainly not better. I suppose many fans will love the orchestra-only The Poet, but to me, this is again veering Stilton county. But as Poet leads into After The Day, the group just drops one f their bombs (sonically and literally at the end of the tune) with its best track so far. Indeed, After The Day is a dramatic tune that gets heavy on the emotions and features some of the eeriest guitars.

A very poor showing in a patchy album that seemed to be on the verge of separation (unsubstantiated speculation on my part) and future financial problems eventually leading them into bankruptcy. Barclay Lames Hardest, the orchestra and this kind of album are exactly what the large public holds against prog, and by god, BJH did a ton of these that there is enough Shropshire blue cheese to feed China for two centuries. Not really bad, but you'd better