SWEET CHILD

This is my favourite's PENTANGLE record. Beautiful music that stands tall against the test of time. This is on of the children of the hippie-movement, but it does not sound dated or naive. The music is simple and complex in the same time. There is not many rock overtones here, this is pure folk with the clever amount of jazz, blues and medieval music thrown in for a good measure. Renbourn's guitar work is pure delight. Beauty of Jacqui's voice is outshining the rest of the female folk singers. Double bass is the band's trademark.

There are more than twenty tracks on this double album, but it's hard to tell if there's a weak one. It's impossible to choose the peaks here, this craft is more like a plateau, if I may say. Weak tracks are weak only compared to the brilliant ones: Three-Part Thing, remarkable Sovey, Bruton Town, In Your Mind...I won't analyse ever track here, let's just see a few highlights. Well, the most atmospheric one is "A Woman Like You", with incredible guitar work (a think the guitar is tuned in D open tune). The most tribal-sounding one is "Moon Dog", oh what a tune! Anybody sitting on a street with a small hand drum can do it. But it's so powerful.

"The Trees They Do Grow High" is another folk song, full of sorrow and beauty. ANGELO BRANDUARDI (Italian prog-folk singer) made the cover of this song with Italian lyrics. "Sovey" shares the same beauty and it sounds ancient at the same time...

There you go. I can continue with this until the last song is mentioned, but it's quite pointless to repeat the same "lovely" and "beautiful" all the time. Also, there is no point to make some clever comparisons and analysis. For God's sake, it's folk! And it's fine art at first place. The reason I'm giving one star less than five is only because the album does not suits perfectly into the typical progressive rock milieu.But let the music speak for itself.