BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST

Last year I became a big fan of Barclay James Harvest. Originally introduced to their sound after one of my friends loaned me his copy of Once Again and it's safe to say that I was hooked to their strong melodies and the wonderful 70's mellotron sound. I bought almost all of their albums from the debut to Octoberon at once and later followed up by purchasing the remainder of their 70's catalog.

I definitely enjoy the debut album but while listening to it I always get the feeling that it could have been slightly better. It's true that Barclay James Harvest have never been a truly original band and this album is a good example of that since it borrows a great deal of its sound from the great 60's bands like The Beatles and Procol Harum to name a few. But I never really had a problem with that because this band never were clones of any particular style and their own compositions often resulted in great songwriting that even surpassed their sources of inspiration.

What I really lack on this debut is the bold statement that would put the band on the map. It's almost as if the members were uncertain of their writing so they wrote a bunch of different composition samples and crammed them all on one album. There is just no consistency here! I also think that the epic Dark Now My Sky would have worked better without the two minutes long intro that I always have to skip through to get to the good stuff. On the other hand The Sun Will Never Shine is just a marvelous tune that reminiscent of Moody Blues.

This album is a perfect example of a good album that still is non-essential to most fans of progressive rock.

***** star songs: The Sun Will Never Shine (5:04)

**** star songs: Mother Dear (3:13) When The World Was Woken (5:44) The Iron Maiden (2:39) Dark Now My Sky (11:54)

*** star songs: Taking Some Time On (5:27) Good Love Child (5:05)