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Cherry Red [Release date : 23.02.23]
Procol Harum’s second album, originally released in 1968.
This cutting edge remaster, transferred to 12″ vinyl, takes us into the studio, listening to the recording sessions, hearing each note, each sound, near or far, miked or not. A genuine thrill.
Often described as Progressive Rock, just not as we know it, the album was one part theatre and one part rock, often with sizeable helpings of bluesy guitar from Robin Trower.
It had weight, it had drama and it had great tunes.
The band: Gary Brooker (piano,vocals), BJ Wilson (drums), Mattthew Fisher (keys), Robin Trower (guitar) and David Knights (bass) had scored two huge hit singles the previous year, ‘A Whiter Shade Of Pale’ and its alter ego, ‘Homburg’.
Much was expected of Shine On Brightly.
Only ‘Quite Rightly So’, the opening track, shares DNA with those groundbreaking recordings.
‘Shine On Brightly’, the track, is a progressive step, a short, sharp, cheery piece, designed to change the mood and to change the tone.
Jump to ‘In Held Twas I’, a 5 part, 17 minute suite, occupying the entirety of side 2.
The dark and passionate intensity of the 4 minute spoken word intro gives the track and the album a great sense of moment, as if it is on the edge of discovering something brand new. The punch line deflates any thoughts of pretentiousness.
‘In The Autumn Of My Madness’ (Matthew Fisher on vocals) is probably closest in structure to the previous years hit singles.
In the production’s appropriation of quotidian sounds, matching the dramatic events in Keith Reid’s lyrics with Gary Brooker’s music, the song somehow becomes something new, rising above its origins.
The operatic ‘Look To Your Soul’, stands out too. Trower’s distorted guitars, echoing Fisher’s keyboard motif from ‘The Autumn Of My Madness’ is the perfect match for Brooker’s plaintive, pleading vocals.
The ‘Grand Finale’ is exactly that. A quasi classical (influenced by 18th century composer, Joseph Haydn) slice of instrumental (and choral) Progressive Rock, brimming with ideas and practically vibrating with musical energy, showing us that anything their peers, The Moody Blues and the Nice can do, they can do better.
And so, a lot of different pieces at work. The ability to bring them all together to create a cohesive whole was impressive, propelling Procol Harum into the vanguard of the emerging Prog Rock movement. *****
Review by Brian McGowan
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