NIGHTINGALES & BOMBERS

Nightingales & Bombers is another album in a long series of very good albums released by Manfred Mann's Earth Band in the 70's. As had become a trademark of the band by this time, the album begins with a cover song heavily re-arranged in the bands own style. This time it is Bruce Springsteen's Spirits In The Night; a great version, rather 'progified'. Apart from Spirits In The Night there is also a second cover this time in Visionary Mountains, credited to Armatrading/Nestor. I don't know the original version or who performed it, but it is a great song. This song is softer and slower compared to the previous three tracks, offering a short respite from the rather intense moments. Visionary Mountains reminds slightly of the softer tracks off the excellent The Roaring Silence and is possibly my favourite track on Nightingales & Bombers. Overall however, the material on this album is more similar in style to that of Solar Fire, and these two albums are among the band's most experimental (yet melodic) ones.

This album includes some of the band's better and perhaps most progressive material. Songs like Time Is Right and Fat Nelly are highly melodic and there are many instrumental sections where the guitarist and Mann himself can stretch out. There are admittedly a few passages throughout the album where you get the feeling they don't quite know where they are going, but these moments pass by very quickly. The last track was recorded live and should perhaps best be regarded as a bonus track. Anyway, I think it is rather forgettable and it doesn't add much to the album as a whole (despite the fact that it features the sampled recording that gave the album its name - a recording from the Second World War, made by an ornithologist intending to capture nightingales and accidentally captured bomb planes too!).

Nightingales & Bombers is one of Manfred Mann's Earth Band's better albums.

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