FOREST

Forest´s second album Full Circle is a very nice folky prog rock album. This is another genre I don´t know much about, but a guy I meet at the public libary in the city where I live recommended Forest to me, so I thought to myself what the hell I´ll give it a try. Let me tell you something right away, these albums are very hard to get and if you find an LP version it´ll cost you dearly. Well I found a CD version and I´m glad I did as Forest is a really good band.

The music isn´t traditional folk rock but more of a blend between folk rock and pshychadelic sixties rock and a few prog rock tendencies. Personally I like the more sombre songs like Bluebell Dance and To Julie the most. Especially because of the wonderful guitar playing in those songs. Graveyard is a great song too. But overall the quality in the compositions are very high. Forest uses a lot of instruments in the songs like: mandolin, whistle, harmonica, violin, cello, piano, harmonium, electric harpsichord and percussion in addition to guitar and bass. There are no drums on the album. This of course adds to the variation between the songs and keep this album exciting the whole playing time. The singing is rather special and takes some getting used to.

The sound is really good and again I really enjoy the guitar and how it sounds.

This is a really good album and I´ll rate it 3 stars even though this is not my style of music. It´s really good though and I enjoyed it and I even think it´s a bit different than other things I have heard in the genre.

The thing that actually kind of creeps me out about this album is how similar the sounds are to any number of paisley underground bands from the early eighties. Green on Red, the Long Ryders, the Leaving Trains, Rain Parade, the Three O’Clock, and even the Golden Palominos to a certain extent. These are bands that I took a liking to when progressive music went to sh!t around 1979. Asia and Marillion just weren’t enough to quench the thirst for new music, and R.E.M. only put out an album every year and a half or so, so the proto-alt.country sound of the Paisley Underground set was a great appeal for a kid from the mountains who’d grown up with plenty of American country music and had an appreciation for steel guitar and psych treatments on Heartland folk standards. Imagine my surprise the first time I listened to this reissue of a Woodstock-era Abbey Road record by a trio of British wyrd folk and heard some of those same sounds a full decade before they appeared in Los Angeles studio’s with American country rockers playing them!

There are a few obvious reasons for the comparison. First, the opening track “Hawk the Hawker” features the late Gordon Huntley on steel guitar, not the kind of instrument you’d expect from an early seventies British acoustic folk band. There’s also a noticeable thread of harmonica and whistles floating across the arrangement, and the net effect the first time I heard it was to instantly remind me of “Honest Man” from Green on Red’s 1985 album ‘No Free Lunch’. Sure, the vocal accents are different and the paisley bands tended to have a rougher edge since most of them came out of the west coast punk days of the latter seventies, but the folkish guitar, slightly off-key vocals, and character sketch lyrics have an uncanny resemblance to the first couple of tracks on Forest’s last album. Huntley by the way was much in demand as a session player around this time, having appeared with Whistler, Elton John (‘Tumbleweed Connection’), Rod Stewart (‘Never a Dull Moment’), and as a member of Ian Matthew’s long-standing project Southern Comfort. I didn’t realize he had passed on until I listened to this album and did a bit of research. Rest in peace Gordon.

“Bluebell Dance” also has a slightly psych sound that was so prevalent in the eighties paisley music, although again this is undeniably folk-inspired and much more mellow than most of those bands. Same goes for “The Midnight Hanging of a Runaway Serf” and “Do Not Walk In The Rain”. The vocals on those two songs have driven me a bit mad trying to recall who they remind me of, but there’s definitely someone. Maybe somebody who reads this can make the connection. The electric harpsichord from the band’s debut is present here as well, and makes for a much more folk-leaning sound than the traditional piano that is also present.

Apparently the trio took a different approach on this last album, with each of the members contributing ideas and compositions that led in slightly different directions. The result is an album that plays much more like a sampler than did the contiguous theme of their debut. This isn’t nearly as much of a folk album as the first, although the mandolin, acoustic guitar and flute keep the sound in that general vein. This is especially true of the acoustic guitar-driven instrumental “To Julie” and the mandolin-heavy “Gypsy Girl & Rambleaway”.

“Much Ado About Nothing”, “Graveyard” and “Famine Song” play more like traditional British folk, especially “Famine Song” which is mostly a capella and leans a bit to a Celtic bent.

The closing “Autumn Childhood” is a bit of a throwback to the late sixties, with bard-like story-telling vocals and gentle acoustic guitar and mandolin that pick up for a while and add harmonica for a coffee-shop folk mood. This is also the longest track Forest ever recorded to the best of my knowledge, clocking in at more than six minutes.

While the first Forest album is undeniably British folk steeped in sixties sensibilities, this one is more forward-looking and experimental. It’s a good album, but I can’t say it is great. Three stars for the courage to take some chances, but not quite as good as their debut. The band hung on for a year or so after this released, but the times they had a’ changed and the direction of progressive and folk music had already passed these guys by the time they released this album (although the spirit of the music seems to have resurfaced on the American west coast a decade later). Recommended to prog folk fans mostly, and worth a spin or two if you come across it.

peace

Forest is a band that I think sometimes gets elevated a bit by revisionist history when it comes to progressive folk. This and their other album were originally released on Harvest Records, and this one was recorded at Abbey Road where John Peel reportedly doted on the band. The originals are near impossible to get your hands on today without a fairly fat checkbook, but both albums were reissued by Beat Goes On in the nineties as a much more accessible 2CD set. This debut was also reissued by Radioactive Records on both CD and on limited-issue vinyl, and both these can be had pretty easily.

As near as I can tell these three guys must have a friendship that dates back to their youth, as they have some documented history dating to 1966 as the Forester of Walesby, and there is an impossible-to-find single from the group that was released around 1968 or so. This album was recorded and released about a year after that.

The music here has a medieval feel to it, and the combination of flute and acoustic instrumentation, multi-part harmonies, and lyrics about fairies and lovers and firing up a fatty combine to place this squarely in that latter sixties as a mildly psych-influenced brand of mellow wyrd folk. These guys got some decent attention in the studio it appears though, perhaps from Peel, or maybe Paul McCartney wandered over between takes of “Here Comes the Sun” to bogart a spliff and lent his two cents to the production. Who knows. The result in any case is a decidedly sixties trippy folk album that weathers the test of time about as well as all those old Deadhead Earth moms who crowd the free clinics today looking for their insulin and methadone treatments.

Okay maybe that’s a bit harsh. These guys were certainly sincere in trying to lay down some light, fantasy folk with lots of love and flowers and warmth-for-humankind themes, and on that count they succeeded. They also found themselves admired by a select few industry types and other musicians, but only managed to stay together for a few years after this release before fading away. The album and the band would have been far more successful had this release come out in 1965 then in 1969, but we don’t get to choose when we are born so it is what it is.

Musically this is a fun album to listen to as long as it is taken for what it is: a psych-and-patchouli driven thing that had nearly become and anachronism by the time it was released. The musical quality is very good though, with each of the trio working multiple instruments and the instrument selection itself lending well to the aura of the album: mandolin, cello, harpsichord, harmonium, flute and various pipes, and little bits of embellished percussion throughout that add to the mood of a romp through the woods on a warm summer afternoon with a lover.

The individual songs are a mixed-bag. “Do you want some smoke?” for example has a lazy cadence and flat deliver that suggests the band had plenty smoke to share at the time they recorded this. “Bad Penny” has nice vocal harmonies and pipes but sounds an awful lot like the post-Mod Moody Blues’ first two albums – I keep wanting to chant “Go now!” every time I hear this one.

The tempo and instrumentation of “A Glade Somewhere” makes it sound a bit like a Fairport Convention tune minus Sandy Denny, while the male vocals actually remind me just a bit of Dylan around the same period.

One of my favorite tunes is the languid “Nothing Else Will Matter” which has some pleasant strumming acoustic guitar, great three- part harmonies, and just the right dose of electric harpsichord to push it out of the sixties and suggest the band might have had more of a future had they evolved that sound instead of fracturing into the three-part experiment that become their second and final album.

Today Martin Welham performs with his son Tom as “the Story”, although I don’t get the impression they make a living with that. Derek Allenby has a band called Southernwood which also features his wife Cathy. I’ve no idea with Adrian Welham does, but I’m sure there’s music in that life somewhere.

This was a very good progressive folk album in 1969, even though nobody was calling it that then. It’s still good, but doesn’t hold up over time quite as well as some of the classic recordings of that day, largely because the arrangements and lyrical themes expressed here were already becoming outdated even as the band recorded them. So three stars is fair, and if you had to pick one of the band’s two albums I would make it this one.

peace

7.2/10 Good

Full Circle is a really pleasent album that hits a few bumps and doesn't really hit many high points. Forest' sound is really great, a true folk prog sound with that usual dark/light transition found everywhere. What Forest is trying to do I think is pulled off perfectly; There is no real craziness happening, but just a band trying to get through their ideas and enjoying what they are doing. For this we have alot of, perhaps, "boring" songs to some, but to folk fans there is alot to enjoy. "Hawk the Hawker", "Graveyard" and "Famine Song" alone make this album a must listen for those interested...these songs are incredible, and are Forest at their peak! The rest of the album has some good moments but the songs feel a bit disjointed and sometimes you may only want to hear a part of a specific track. Again, though, the melodies are there and the music is fine, there is much to enjoy, you just find yourself a bit hopeful sometimes for something more, and it doesn't quite get there! Still good, though.

More psychedelic than progressive, Forest's only two albums fairly reek of the late 60s back to nature acoustic hippy innocence. While they were generally considered followers and imitators of the Incredible String Band, when in fact they were considered at all, they were not quite as "out there", for better or worse. In my opinion they better captured the barefoot adventurousness of the era by mostly avoiding the smarminess that plagued the ISB. They were all multi-instrumentalists who generally focused on songwriting and arranging rather than playing for the sake of it. While I played this for someone who thought the production dreadful, it doesn't bother me in the least.

The debut establishes a style that does not change much over the band's short career - simple folky melodies with twists and dissonance galore, sometimes more than is beneficial. In fact at times it seems Forest doesn't know whether they want to be organic or intellectual, but where they succeed in bridging the two approaches, they succeed brilliantly, as in the triple whammy of "Sylvie", "A Fantasy You" and "A Fading Light". The failures are not so much embarassing as unengaging, and include the last few songs on the disk. But I suspect that every Forest fan has a different view of what works and what doesn't.

"Full Circle" is somewhat less obtuse and stronger, and starts with one of Forest's most straightforward tunes, "Hawk the Hawker", which recalls Dylan's lengthy expositions but in abbreviated form. "Bluebell Dance" is totally different, a mysterious pagan ritual which, along with "Fading Light" off the debut, is my favourite Forest song. These guys knew how to create a million dollar atmosphere with pennies. "Gypsy Girl and Rambleaway" is another story resting on a strong well played melody. "Graveyard" is another triumph of mood and setting, resting on a backing of wistful whistles that at times sound like piano accompaniment. As with the first album, several songs show promise but suffer from stunted development or lack of follow through, in particular "Do Not Walk in the Rain" and "Much Ado about Nothing", and especially the interminable "Autumn Childhood".

This double CD captures the mood of the times, but its acoustic orientation saves it from anything approaching irrelevance. Well worth checking out if spending time in the forest of very English psychedelic folk rock is your thing, and isn't it everyone's?

I was really charmed by this bunch of guys crafting up some "raw songs of the earth", as it is described in the album liner notes. Their soundtexture builds up from layers of acoustic guitars, mandolins, flutes and male vocals in both chorus and melodic solo patterns. There are some subtle keyboards breaking up the puristic medieval instrumentation, and also some lyrics are not following the ancient themes, but this doesn't ruin the wholeness in my opinion, but makes it more fuzzy and surreal; There are small doses of psychedelia included in this soup, I believe. Though the music is built from simple elements, the guys have managed to fill their wailing tunes with very strong emotions, and I'm receptive to this kind of approach. All of the compositions are quite good in my opinion, but the best song of them all is "A Glade Somewhere", a really shameless crying after a woman presented in a form of powerful harmonics and melodies, making up a really pretty piece of music.

The cover picture of this album present the music it conseals perfectly. Raw coloudrawings fit with the basic instrumentations accessible to anybody, and the image is full of mystery and glorification of the ancient days. I bought myself a nice vinyl reissue pressed by "Radioactive", and one can also find a pic of ye minstrels gettin' high in ye glade within the heart of gatefold sleeve. You can surely flavor your nights of rustic aesthetics with this record, thus highly recommended!

This album has both brutal and beautiful elements, and the raw acoustic tunes create weird and very enchanting music. There are much medieval influences here, but the overall aesthetics are not luckily very idealized or fantasy related, but sincere and realistic, filled with mystery, misery and violence. Music is peaceful but partly disturbing too. "Bluebell" was quite good track, and the last song "Autumn Childhood" is very weird with strange rhythm changes and several parts. "The Midnight Hanging of A Runaway Serf" was also quite affecting in it's brutality and realism. "Graveyard" is also very beautiful and quite accessible song, but maybe best of them all is "Gypsy girl & Rambleway", describing a love affair with very raw medieval sounds. Before this number is also a fine instrumental track "To Julie", which could have been performed by real ancient bards. This record is recommended sincerely for fans of depressing middle age music. As a hint, at least for me this album took several spins to open up properly!

Full Circle is very similar to the debut epnymous album , but does take things a little further (but only slightly so). The music still hovers around the late 60's folk somewhere around Fairport Convention and Incredible String Band but almost without percussions.

There is slightly more room for the instruments than on their first album: the tracks are noticeably longer leaving more space for interplay. Highlights are the instrumental for Julie, Gypsy Girl , Graveyard and Autumn Childhood.

If a proghead unfamiliar to this group would like to investigate them, I can advise them to start with this album. Not that it is intrisically better than the debut, but one will find more elements that a proghead can relate to in this album. Not Essential listening in the frame our this site but quite enjoyble , nevertheless.

Forest's first album is a typical product of late 60's British folk or folk-rock but does not really qualify as folk-prog like the Trees or Comus would. This is also much calmer folk than Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span , Pentangle and others Incredible String Band.

But we are not far away from all of those groups mentionned above and if you enjoy them , you are likely to enjoy this. There are some highlights here, notably the two longer tracks , Fading Lights and Don't Want To Go , but all other tracks are fine, really.

Overall , I think that Forest could've used more percussion to make their music, slightly more interesting. As Lise says in the band's intro , they are very enjoyable but hardly essential in context of our ProgArchives.