BGO 2012
BGO have had this on catalogue for years now but its re-reissue (!) rightly suggests Gracious merit more attention. When it comes to box-ticking, the keyboard-driven six-piece had much to suggest assured success as flighty lightweight pop tipped into deep-thinking prog at the end of the ’60s. Former pupils at a fancy school in the comfy stockbroker belt of England’s Home Counties (sound familiar?), they penned expansive and quirky concept pieces on matters of belief and the metaphysical, and drenched the lot in symphonic swathes of Mellotron and Wagnerian percussion when they got into the studio after getting signed to hip Vertigo.
1970′s self-titled debut sets out their stall with the sprawling ‘Heaven’ and … yes, ‘Hell’, while the mind-bending ‘The Dream’ is offset by atypically brief harpischord instrumental ‘Fugue in D Minor’ (that classical education again). There were some good ideas on the go but, on reflection, not enough to sustain the ambitiously-protracted running times of the material.
As if sensing this at the time, the band returned with “This Is…” the following year, bringing a relatively higher yield of shorter tracks – well, album side-long ‘Super Nova’ aside. These serve Gracious’s compositional and performance capabilities better, being both more accessible and culturally akin to the work of label mates like Cressida and Beggar’s Opera. Right place, right time notwithstanding, the release proved to be posthumous as the band fell apart.
This 2CD package is a straight re-run with its 1995 notes intact. But then contemporary postscript would be subjective as there is next to nothing about the band out there in 2012. Gracious!
Peter Muir ***
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Power Plays w/c 9 December 2024
In this sequence we play ‘The Best of 2024′ GRTR! reviewer selections
Featured Albums w/c 9 December 2024
09:00-12:00 The Best of 2024 (Melodic Rock)
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