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Procol Harum - Home CD (album) cover

HOME

Procol Harum

 

Crossover Prog

3.57 | 191 ratings

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SteveG
4 stars If Procol Harum have one distinguishing fault, it's the overall quality of their albums. Title tracks like A Salty Dog and Grand Hotel are classic songs they few can aspire to in the progressive rock cannon, but the remaining songs on these respective albums are hit and miss.

Home is one of Procol Harum's first albums to contain great songs all the way through starting with Robin Trower's powerful blues riffing on Whiskey Train in which the narrator pledges his divorce from the bottle for the love of his sweetheart. Gary Brooker easily laying down the requisite whiskey voiced pleading while adding color with some old time piano from the wild west. It remains one of Procol's best rock songs along with the foreboding and dramatic About To Die which features more heavy riffing from Trower mated to Keith Reid's fascination (on this album) with death. The song's stiff verse turns on a dime into a chorus that would fit easily on any early album by the Band, and is aided with rustic but compelling piano from Brooker. This also sounds inspired by the Band.

The death theme reappears on the acoustic strummed ballad titled Nothing I Didn't Know. A pining lament for a girl dumped and somehow ends up deceased, with Brooker singing how he should have died instead. With all this death in the air, you would think that home was a dreary album but the truth is that Brooker, Trower, drummer BJ Wilson and bassist/organist Chris Copping laydown such compelling music that Reid's lyrics seem almost like an afterthought.

This album's highlight is the progressive masterpiece titled Whaling Stories, where Reid's lyrics return to early Pocol Harum surrealism with an orchestra and choir adding dramatic flare to this suite-like song. Another Procol classic on par with A Salty Dog and Grand Hotel, but not seeming as grand as the other album tracks on Home are so good in themselves.

For many Procol Harum fans, this is there favorite album. It may not be my mine, but I can certainly understand their reasoning. An extremely solid album. 4 stars.

SteveG | 4/5 |

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