GONE TO EARTH

"Gone To Earth" is the eighth studio album of Barclay James Harvest and was released in 1977. The album's name has a curious and interesting signification. The album's title, "Gone To Earth", refers to the fox hunter's cry used to indicate that the quarry has returned to its lair. It was a big successful album, their most successful and popular album, and it was housed in one of the most beautiful die-cut covers ever. It became the band's largest selling album until today, eventually selling more than a million copies worldwide. On "Gone To Earth", Barclay James Harvest dropped all ambitions about being complex as they never were the band for that anyway. Instead, they were focused on what they did best, writing sweet, symphonic and strongly melodic tunes without any interrupting elements or unnecessary turns.

"Gone To Earth" has nine tracks. The first track "Hymn" written by John Lees is a religious song describing briefly the life of Christ. However, the meaning of the song is dubious and leaves for everyone the true meaning of the song. It's a very powerful song with great melody, incredible instrumental work and it has also a true incredible and luxurious arrangement. This is, without any doubt, a great song, one of their best, one of the most beloved songs by their fans and it's also one of the most performed live on their concerts. The second track "Love Is Like A Violin" written by John Lees is an extremely beautiful song with an ethereal melody that suddenly turns into a rock song. It's also a song with beautiful verses and nice chorus. It represents also one of the best musical moments on the album, indeed. The third track "Friend Of Mine" written by Les Holroyd is, in my opinion, a true surprising track. It shows a country rock side of the group, rarely seen on the band until now. It seems to me that this song reflects yet some influences of the American west coast sound, taken by them when they were in San Francisco. This had been much noticed on their studio album, "Time Honoured Ghosts". This is the weakest track on the album, until now. The fourth track "Poor Man's Moody Blues" written by John Lees is a song that contains two meanings. It's a personal homage of the group to The Moody Blues and their song "Nights In White Satin", and it's also, at the same time, an ironic song whose title song reflects the accusation made to the group, that for many years their music was considered very similar but inferior to The Moody Blues music. As "Hymn", it's also one of their best, one of the most beloved songs by their fans and it's also one of the most performed live on their concerts. It's interesting to note that if Justin Hayward's song is a masterpiece, this John Lees' version is also a great version. The fifth track "Hard Hearted Woman" written by Les Holroyd is a nice song. It's a pleasant song to hear with great bass work, performed by Les Holroyd. It's almost a funky and danceable song but sincerely it doesn't contain anything exciting enough to be considered a true great song. The sixth track "Sea Of Tranquillity" written by Woolly Wolstenholme represents one of the typical pieces of music of him. It's a very pretty piece of music, full of some great bombastic keyboard work and is very well accompanied by great vocal performance performed by him. It's a very progressive song, probably the only totally progressive song on the album. This song represents another high musical moment on the album and gives to it the progressive touch that it needed. The seventh track "Spirit On The Water" written by Les Holroyd is an environment protest song with some good lyrics. The vocal harmonies by the backing vocals are very beautiful and remind me Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young or the Eagles. Still, being a nice and pleasant song to hear, it hasn't, in reality, anything special to be considered a great song. The eighth track "Leper's Song" written by Jon Lees is a rocker song, the only truly rock song on the album. This is an interesting song with some nice guitar work. However, despite being a good and nice song of John Lees, it represents, without any doubt, his weakest contribution to this musical work. The ninth and last track "Taking Me Higher" written by Les Holroyd is a nice love song performed almost on piano and organ with tender and beautiful vocals that closes the album in a very soft and quiet way. It's a very calm and nice ballad that finishes the album nicely and harmoniously.

Conclusion: I know that lots of the fans list "Gone To Earth" as their favourite studio album of Barclay James Harvest, mainly because it contains two of the best and most beloved tracks from the band, "Hymn" and "Poor Man's Moody Blues". However, I'm convinced that there are better tracks on their other studio albums. Being "Gone To Earth" a very pleasant and accomplished album, it isn't, in my opinion, a very cohesive and balanced album. It has two great songs, "Hymn" and "Poor Man's Moody Blues", two very good songs "Love Is Like A Violin" and "Sea Of Tranquillity", but the rest is pretty much standard musical material from Barclay James Harvest, actually nothing truly noteworthy, especially the material composed by Les Holroyd is unusually bellow from the quality level in which we were used to. So, my rating of 4 stars is only because "Gone To Earth" has some of the best material ever composed by the band, indeed.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)

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