At first I thought this was a really spectacular album, but unfortunately the song "Gilbert Street" is WAY too long. We're talkin' 5 minutes overlong, repeating the same vocal melody and chorus over and over until your head screams. Despite this problem, I like the sound these guys have. It's good music and worth owning. "Side of the Road" is a pretty good bluesy song with nice piano parts. Just don't be surprised if some of the melodies repeat a bit too much.
August 28, 2007No need to judge here, If you wish to feel a real piece of art folk rock emotional 60/70's this is it...the band members songs come together in a mix that is gloomy,melancholy and beautiful all at once...perhaps bittersweet is the best adjective for all of these music "giants" getting together on a cd that will not dissapoint..great real music was and remains great music..intospective and moody but unique.
This album is like a serious joke,great session men getting together and playing for keeps.
December 23, 2004 |  | and Dylan is technically a poor singer... so? |  |
...I don't get the feeling it was SUPPOSED to be a tight band. Saying this album is poorly produced IMHO is like saying Bob Dylan can't sing. By some standards both may be valid opinions, but if you understand that it doesn't matter that (in conventional terms) Dylan is a poor singer, then you might relate to the laid back "live jam" feel of this album. Not every track is memorable, but enough of them (by the way, I also heard "Jenny" and "Laughed at Him" in rotation on progressive FM radio of the early 70s) are to make it worth it. Hey, at least this is a CD nowadays, so if you don't like some of the tracks, you can probably program your CD player to skip them. For those who never heard them, I might describe the sound as in the realm of Mark/Almond but looser, except "Sweet Francesca" which sounds awfully like a Rolling Stones jam outtake. Nice melodies on the stronger tracks.
March 5, 2002When this album was originally released in the late 1960's (or very early 1970's) it received fairly heavy airplay on AOR FM radio stations. Little wonder as the band's personnel included the keyboardist Nicky Hopkins who had played on early Rolling Stones tracks and with the early Jeff Beck Group, as well as the up and coming singer-guitarist John Mark. Two of the tracks, "The Dealer" and "Gilbert Street" were in regular late night rotation.
This record was the band's only release in the US and it quickly went out of print. Pity, I thought, having particularly loved the tune "Gilbert Street" about some of the denizens of this road in London's West End. I looked for the vinyl, and later on for the CD for decades. In 1998 the record was reissued on CD.
THAT was the pity! You really can't recapture the glamour of your adolescence and this disc makes that all too painfully obvious. The production values are horrendous and it's hard to imagine that the producer (the band's drummer, Harvey Burns)had any studio experience or was even paying attention. The group is often playing out of time and frequently off-key. Tuning the instruments might have helped.
Nostalgia aside, the disc is a major disappointment, especially for fans of somewhat obscure late 60's British rock. January 25, 2000
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