Album title: Barclay James Harvest
Artist: Barclay James Harvest
Nationality: English
Label: EMI
Chronology: Debut
Grade: B
Previous Experience of this Artist: I’ve heard about two songs, one of which used to close Radio Luxembourg’s broadcast for the night I think
The Trollheart Factor: 1
Landmark value: Not certain; I don’t believe they had any huge lasting effect on prog rock, though I could be wrong and I guess we’ll see. None of the names involved look like they went on to more famous bands either. Two of the founder members, in fact, appear to have died early in this century.
Tracklisting: Taking Some Time On/Mother Dear/The Sun Will Never Shine/When the World Was Woken/Good Love Child/The Iron Maiden/Dark Now My Sky
Comments: Sounds a bit folky or bluegrass when it starts with “Taking Some Time On” then it turns into a fairly uptempo rock song, I believe they once released a song called “Poor Man’s Moody Blues” and that’s definitely the sense I get from them. Very similar, and they also use an orchestra on this album as did the Moodies. You can hear the change from straight-ahead rock to a more orchestral proggy tune in “Mother Dear”, but again it’s Moody Blues V. 2.0 and while I really love the Beatles-infused “The Sun Will Never Shine” the comparison won’t go away. I guess this must have dogged them through their career.
I must admit, nice song though it is, the vocal on “When the World Was Woken” seems totally limp and boring. Great organ work on it though and it has a real cinematic feel, very sweeping and majestic. Total change then with “Good Love Child” which is a simple rock tune, and to be completely fair, not a great one. Very generic, could be any band. I guess at least it doesn’t make them sound like the azure ones, whereas “The Iron Maiden” very much does, a slower, kind of pastoral ballad. The album ends on an epic, the twelve-minute “Dark Now My Sky”, which given the title you’d expect either to be whiny or ominous and threatening, however it starts with slow hollow drumming and speech, kind of as if someone is acting out on stage.
It soon comes to life though on a big orchestral intro (in terms of music anyway) and apart from the pretty ridiculous-sounding start (though it may have some significance: I couldn’t make out the words used or the context in which they were spoken, but it seemed to be like someone in a play) this is easily the best track on the album, but that doesn’t mean the rest isn’t mostly high-quality too. A very impressive debut. If only the Moodies hadn’t got there first.
Favourite track(s): Everything bar
Good Love Child
Least favourite track(s): Good Love Child
Overall impression: It’s really sad for BJH that the Moody Blues were around at the same time, recording the same sort of albums and also using orchestras, as these guys then look like they were copying them, which I’m sure they weren’t. But it’s the perception that lasts in the end, and as I said they seem to have accepted this some years later, even writing a song called “Poor Man’s Moody Blues”. Despite all this, they seem to have been quite successful.
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