RING OF HANDS

Argent's second album, is the missing link between their self titled first album with it's straight forward mainly pop based songs, and their more progressive and generally louder third album "All together now". Unfortunately, it tends to gather in the poorer sides of both albums, rather than parts which made those albums notable.

"Celebration" is an obvious opener, and was released as an unsuccessful single. As DJ Alan Freeman put it at the time when reviewing this song, "the ring wasn't quite loud enough". Russ Ballard contributes three songs, all of which demonstrate the enormous potential he had, which even to this day has been criminally under exploited. "Chained" (successfully covered by Three Dog Night) is the best of his tracks here, and thus the best on the album.

The long running Argent/White partnership (which goes back to Argent's Zombie days, although White never actually became a member of Argent) is responsible for the rest of the tracks. Of these, "Lothlorien" is both the most progressive, and the most striking. Rod Argent has the space here to indulge in some fine organ playing, leaving Ballard to do the singing (something Rod should have let him do more often!). "Pleasure" also features some good organ work, while "Sleep won't help me" is "Bring you joy" (from the first album) part 2.

The sleeve notes talk about this album being more "urgent" than their first. It's certainly a bit more complex at times, but urgent(?), not really. The music is adequate but unremarkable, and in the end rather ordinary. It's surprising how badly the album has aged in places, compared to other similar music of the time. Had Argent released another album like this, they would simply never have made it. They didn't, and the rest is history.

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