THE STRANGE TALE OF CAPTAIN SHANNON AND THE HUNCHBACK FROM GIGHA

Bread Love and Dreams second efford is quite a big improvement over their debut the year before. In fact, this now scotish duo (guitarrist Carolyn Davis had left after their first album) was quite on a roll and they recorded enough material for a intended double album. The recording disagreed and instead released two single Lps, this one and their final one Amaryllis some months after it. Neither would sell much leading to the band being sacked from their label and eventually breaking up not too long after that.

When I got the CD reissued I thought it might be a concept album of sorts, but it isn´t. The title just refers to the story told through the record´s last (and, at a little over 6 minutes, the longest) track. And it is surely one of the album´s highlight. This time they did a much better instrumental job recruiting real fine musicians to back them, including The Pentangle rhythm section of Danny Thompson on acoustic bass and Terry Cox on drums. Besides, I have to say that David McNiven and Angie Rew are quite good singers. The repertoire is good, but is a bit uneven, with some weak songs among other good ones like Masquerade and Hymn for Sylvia. Production is very good. The cover is another great work.

It seemed their recording company did almost nothing to promote them. However, it is doubtful Bread Love and Dreams could go very far with their sound: They were good, ok, but not outstanding in any way. And with very outstanding groups like Steeleye Span, Fairport Convention, The Pentangle and several others, not many people were interested. And they did not have enough convincing songs to face such competition. But to be fair, I can say they did have their charm. And if you like british folk rock of the late 60´s you´ll probably like this one. Rating: 2.5 stars that I´ll round to three because they did evolve.