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Strawbs - Tears And Pavan (An Introduction To Strawbs) CD (album) cover

TEARS AND PAVAN (AN INTRODUCTION TO STRAWBS)

Strawbs

Prog Folk


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Easy Livin
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR
Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin
4 stars Well chosen

Subtitled "An introduction to", and thus forming part of the generally worthwhile "Introductions" series featuring different artists, "Tears and Pavan" draws its tracks from the Strawbs albums of the late 1960's and early 1970's.

Avoiding the temptation to place their best know works at the start of the album, the selection of "New world" as track one is indeed "brave". This wonderfully bombastic piece, which finds Cousins at his emotional best may surprise casual listeners who see the band as primarily a folk rock outfit.

The tracks selected are not generally the most obvious ones to pick from their original albums, giving this compilation a refreshingly different identity. Even the commercially successful "Lay down" is restricted to the shorter single version. Tracks such as the decidedly un-Strawbs like "Queen of dreams", and the harrowing nightmare of "Ghosts" also show the compilers to have more imagination than those who put together your average "Best of" collection.

Whether this compilation is an accurate introduction to the band's music is of course open to debate, but from a prog point of view, the tracks have been well selected.

Report this review (#19772)
Posted Tuesday, August 3, 2004 | Review Permalink
4 stars This is a nice compilation and features Tears and Pavan which has been left off way to many Strawbs compilations in the past. Add this to Halcyon days and you will have a pretty good over view of this interesting and truly progressive folk band. As this is also a budget release it has a wide appeal to those who might wish to explore this band a little. As with a compilations there are many fine tracks missing and the period of time covered means that the work has no consistency. However I would recommend this release to anyone who is interested in prog folk and anyone determined to build a great collection of records. Really this compilation deserves close to 5 stars on the grounds of both the material and the budget price. In the end Though I will give it just 4 as it suffers from being incomplete.
Report this review (#92049)
Posted Tuesday, September 26, 2006 | Review Permalink
Gooner
PROG REVIEWER
5 stars This is the CD for prog.rockers. I've always found Strawbs LPs to be rather spotty, but for my money - every track on here is either form their prog. period or their stab at psychedelia. Not really folky at all. This is one of the few compilations I'd give 5 stars. Someone really had an interest in making a statement here with the emphasis on prog. If you're midly interested in the Strawbs, this is THE compilation to have. It doens't miss out on any of the highlights and there's not one stinker here. You even get a Rick Wakeman keyboard jam from the live track _Where Is This Dream Of Our Youth?_ where he sounds not too far removed from Jon Lord of Deep Purple.
Report this review (#162452)
Posted Saturday, February 23, 2008 | Review Permalink

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