BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST

This is one of Barclay's best albums.

But is it prog? Well, BJH is loved by many prog fans, but that's something else. They are a crossover prog band which doesn't excel in complexity, musical virtuosity or an adventurous attitude.

So what do they have to offer? Good songs, that's one thing. Also: sophistication in their sound. Not that the Barclay albums are very rich in little details (they are not), but they're good in building an atmospheric sound with simple means. Most Barclay albums have a compelling layered sound, with a strong keyboard presence, and good guitar playing, especially by John Lees. Not prog in the strict sense of the word, but a sound that many prog fans will appreciate.

By the time of Everyone Is Everybody Else BJH didn't need an orchestra anymore, like they did on Once Again and BJH And Other Short Stories. They had learned now to be an orchestra on their own.

And that's quite an achievement, looking how sparse actually the instrumentation is. With few instruments and vocal harmonies they know how to build a full sound. Barclay's sound is heavily influenced by the Moody Blues, from the Days Of Future Passed / Nights In White Satin era. In fact, Barclay were being called a "poor man's Moody Blues". Barclay, like the Moody Blues, has mostly slow songs, stately, with simple but effective musical layers. Like Moody Blues, Barclay likes to make use of the mellotron. Keyboardist Woolly Wolstenhome is very important in this respect for the sound of the band. His keyboards play an important role in the Barclay sound. But Wolstenhome doesn't offer many compositions on most Barclay albums, neither on this one. The main composers of the band are Les and Lees, Les Holroyd en John Lees.

Why is this album so strong? It's not an album with a lot of diversity, but strangely enough that works out very well. The songs are on a very high level, and the fact that there is an enormous unity in sound between the songs doesn't make the album sound 'samey', but maximizes the emotional impact of the songs instead. Barclay had become masters in "less is more", and their composing skills not only help them carve out good songs, but they also know how to compose an album as a whole.

The album opener and the album closer are both true BJH classics. Both are anti-war songs, but on a very personal level, and John Lees' lyrics can send a real shiver down the spine. Yes, in album opener "Child Of The Universe" Lees brings a war which is far from home very close by in his lyrics: "I'm the child next door 300 miles away". Album closer "For No One" is also a highly emotional song, and the lyrics also address the listener on a more philosophical level (this is where the album title, which is part of the lyrics of this song, fits in conceptually).

Also a strong song is "See Me See You", and here at least we see some complexity, which is probably on the account of Wolstenhome.

Taken on their own, "Poor Boy Blues" and "Mill Boys" are not very special, but Barclay are masters in composing an album, and the songs do work out when put next to each other, and as an introduction to the emotion - laden "For No One".

As it comes to instrumentation: I already mentioned Wolstenhome's atmospheric keyboard layers. John Lees is also important for the sound: his guitar bits are not virtuoso in any respect, but he knows where to put an effective riff in the instrumental parts of the songs, adding to the emotional impact of a song.

Also a nice triviality is that Barclay likes to quote from other artists. In the lyrics, for instance: "Have you seen my life, Mr. Groan" from "The Great 1974 Mining Disaster" is a variation on a lyric from the Bee Gees' hit single "1941 Mining Disaster", where they sing: "Have you seen my wife, mr. Jones". Barclay's "Mr. Groan" refers to a British miner's leader in those days, called Joe Gormley. The lyrics of the song are also further on referring to the actual political situation.

There is also a musical quotation on the album: the wordless vocal harmonies in the middle of Crazy City form a clear variation on the "da-do-do-do-da-da-da" at the end of Yes' Roundabout.

This album, though not virtuoso, innovating or complex, is very good because of the strong songs, the intelligent lyrics and the unity in sound. This is not an album that will knock you out when you listen to it for the first time. If you'd buy this album because of this review, you might even be a bit disappointed in the beginning, because the music doesn't sound very ambitious. But when you keep listening to it, it will reveal its secrets. This is Barclay at its best.

Is there a bad Barclay James Harvest album? BJH always had a basic quality in song writing. There are very good albums, and less good albums, but no bad albums.

"BJH And Other Short Stories" is not one of their best albums, still it's a charming album. Once again they were using an orchestra, and the sound of the album is good.

So why is it not one of their better albums? Because there aren't many standout compositions on this album, not as much as on, for instance, "Everyone Is Everybody Else". Still, there are at least three compositions that are classics: Medicine Man, and the twin songs (albeit written by different persons) The Poet and After The Day. The latter two belong two the very best that BJH have ever written, so if you like BJH, you shouldn't miss this album at all. Actually, I bought the cd mainly because of those two songs, which some friend had taped for me some time ago.

If you buy the remastered version (which you really should, like with any of the Barclay albums: a lot of extra songs, interesting liner notes, and the original artwork is within the booklet, and I have the idea that the sound is much better, which can be an important factor in enjoying BJH) you find that there is also an alternative version of their classic song Galadriel.

Not one of their best albums, but if you like Barclay, it's still enjoyable from A to Z. And the last two songs are spine chilling. For me: maybe the best they have ever released.

'Mockingbird' is a masterpiece. Beginning with a tender, humble, guitar arpeggio, the song starts as a gentle love song, a genuine love song, tinged with a definite bittersweet melancholy. Gradually strings and horns fade into consciousness, ebbing and flowing like waves of feeling, but giving the piece a growing sense of scale, a sense which rises into a sudden sweeping crescendo of powerful layered strings and vocals, with a majestic guitar line thrown in for good measure. 'Mockingbird' is a masterpiece.

Unfortunately, the track doesn't set the tone of the album, instead standing out like a shining professional in a team of fairly snotty-nosed gawky teenagers on a team of [insert team sport of your choice] players. The resplendent marriage of sweeping orchestration and honest folk-rock of 'Mockingbird' barely raises its head anywhere else on the album, which is instead populated with rough sounding by-the-numbers rock staples. The band never sound at ease with these lesser tracks, so it is a great shame that the album is padded with them when they could clearly do so much better.

The opener, 'She Said', sets the tone of the album. Clearly harbouring pretensions of being a sweeping orchestral epic, it only really succeeds in being a rock song with some string fills between the chords, and one that goes on too long. It isn't bad; it just feels a wasted opportunity. 'Happy Old World' and 'Ball and Chain' are much worse, being a failed attempt at an eco-anthem and a blues hard rocker respectively, both of which end up sounding a little embarrassing. It isn't all gloom, 'Galadriel' grows into a very prettily textured piece, and 'Song for the Dying' has an odd charm. But overall, as an album, it really fails to hang together and is a disappointment given the band's clear talent.

But then again, 'Mockingbird' is a masterpiece.

This album is epic in so many ways! Alot of keyboards on this one, so you guitar proggies better get used to Ye Olde Mellotron for this album. That doesn't mean there aren't excellent guitar riffs on this album, it's just that this album is way more keyboards than guitars.

The opening track on this album is a classic, which you probably have heard on the radio before (if you listen to the radio, that is), is called Child of the Universe, a beautiful anti-war song written by Barclay James Harvest's guitarist, John Lees. The next few tracks are less Prog like and more Folky than other BJH songs and albums, then come the last three songs of the album, Poor Boy Blues, Mill Boys, and another excellent anti-war song, For No One.

Poor Boy Blues sounds like a blues song, but with a little Prog to it and not really the basic 12- bar you'd expect on a blues song (not saying every song featuring the word Blues is a Blues song). Mill Boys is sort of a Folk-Country song, different from the previous songs on the albums. Mill Boys has a sort of poppy feel to it, a mainstream feel, but we then discover it is only a prelude to the great track which bookends the album, For No One. For No One is another anti-war song written by Lees, sung about how everybody keeps leaning towards war, and never really care about peace. The song features fantastic guitar work by Lees, with the second guitar solo fading out, and ending the album.

This album is a masterpiece. Do not get Baby James, Gone To Earth, XII, Barclay Jamese, or any other BJH album before you get this one. This one is THE Barclay James Harvest album.

All you need is 'love'?

Here is an album with no less than four songs with the word 'love' in the title; Prisoner Of Your Love, He Said Love, You Need Love and On The Wings Of Love! Come on! Even the song Alone In The Night has the L-word in its chorus! This just cannot be good!

He who said 'love' was none other than Jesus, of course! Again? How many songs can one and the same band write about Jesus? The song is almost a carbon copy of Hymn, only worse! A Hymn for the 80's, really.

Most of the songs on Face To Face are a bit schmaltzy, syrupy, light weight 80's pop, with only very slight Prog leanings. The production is the typical 80's one, that we all know. The guitar sound is alright, but the drums, bass and keyboards sound a bit thin and timid. Still, this is clearly a professional recording, made by professional musicians. But you have to have something interesting to record in order to make a good album. This is a band on auto pilot.

'Bland' is a pretty good description of this music. 'Cheesy' also applies to several tracks, and 'awful' applies very well to many of the lyrics. Kiev is a nice song, though.

This is only for fans of this band, all others should probably stay away!

This live album is the perfect place to start investigating this band. And for most Prog fans it will be a perfect place to stop too - this is really the only Barclay James Harvest album you will ever need! They did some good songs that are not present here, but here we have basically the very best of Barclay James Harvest, performed live with more energy and instrumental power than you will find on any of their studio albums. Summer Soldier and Medicine Man are particularly interesting since they are radically different from their studio counterparts, and contain much more instrumental work. Need I add that they are much improved?

The rest of the set are more faithful to the studio versions in structure but most songs feel livelier here and there is a sense of urgency lacking in the studio albums. This is especially apparent on the older tracks like She Said and Mockingbird, which I felt were too "sleepy" on the Once Again album.

Barclay James Harvest is not an essential Prog band, but if you want them in your collection, be sure to make it this one!

'Octoberon' is probably the best illustration from their long and impressing career that Barclay James Harvest was at their absolute peak during the first years of the Polydor contract. Having delivered a stunning and by that time hugely underrated 'rock' album with 'Everyone is everybody else', the band took a different direction with the successor 'Time honoured ghosts'. That album was quiet, with short songs and an alltogether mellow atmosphere, indicated by the stunning album cover. And with 'Octoberon' they decided to do a totally different album again, with longer songs, a dark atmosphere in the songs and the lyrics which may have not been appealling to the new audiences they gathered with the first two Polydor albums. But the band simply wanted to do the songs they wanted to record and right they were. The album starts off very mellow, with a nice acoustic guitar and a good melody, sung very well by Les Holroyd. The song builds up with electric guitar and drums blending together in the choruses. Beautiful beginning. Mayday is a very peculiar song, written and sung by guitarplayer John Lees. Peculiar because of the use of a choir at the end of the song and the almost total absence of guitar. The songs fits perfectly between the lighthearted opening track and the dark, almost spooky and very classical Wolstenholme track 'Ra', probably the best he wrote in his BJH-career. It had a very strange but attractive melody, is dominated by heavy, threatening keyboards that almost play a duet with the guitar and leaves the listener with an uneasy feeling that something bad has just happened. Which is not the case fortunately. The nest three songs are more or less straightforward BJH-songs, with nice melodies, good musicianship and rather romantic lyrics. The album originally closes off with the haunting 'Suicide?' whose melody, guitar and vocals still give me the chivers. An absolute great song with a highly original ending and the never-to-be-anwered question: Did he jump or not? This song certainly ranks among the best John Lees has ever written. As a whole 'Octoberon' has almost nothing of the pastoral sphere that marked 'Time honoured ghosts' nor of the more rock-driven sphere of 'EIEE'. It is an album that has a sound and a taste of its own, markedly different from its precessors and markedly different from the successors. It is BJH at the peak of creativity.

I really don't understand why this band is considerate eclectic prog. except some symphonic parts; there is just a lot of melodic rock and pop music. And all the albums seem as one. Vocal parts are quite good, but to repetitive and with no fluctuation, no feelings, except some melancholy. The keyboard plays just simple atmospheric notes (with a few exceptions), guitar is also to melodic. drums and bass are nothing spectacular... I really don't understand why anybody should listen this mediocre music. there are plenty more bands that make melodic/symphonic rock better and interesting. But eclectic??? For what? A mixture of melodic rock and pop music? Some of their first albums could be considerate as symphonic prog, and it worth to listen them, but after Octomberon and the "death" of the progressive mainstream rock movement, maybe influenced by their record label, the music become to easy to listen. An opinion ...

This one is not only my favourate BJH album but ít's aswell in my top-list porgrecords of all time.

This collection of songs are the best the band has ever written. Even Les Holroyd has written true classics for this one, like the outstanding Crazy City and Paper Wings

The album kicks off with perhaps one of the most famous tracks by the band. John Lees was never satisfied by the arrangment of the song is wich it appeared on this alubm, but it's fine by me.

Negative Earth wich it's electric piano and Paper Wings with it's heavy rock-ending are among the best Les has ever contributed to the band.

The Great 1974 Mining Disaster is based on a Bee Gees song and refers to several Bowie songs. A great solo by John Lees and if you can get hold of the remastered cd-version there's also an alternate mix included as bonustrack wich is even better.

Side two kicks off with the hard-rocking Crazy City, perhaps thaier hardest rocking track to date.Take Me Take Me Take You is lossely based on Hey Jude and features some really fine John Lees solo-guitar.

The following two tracks are intertwined and not all that important but a good listen. It's a little county-meets-folkish, not good, not bad.

But the final song is sublime. Very very good soloing by John Lees and wonderful anti-war-lyrics.

Even if you don't like BJH, you should at least own this gem. And if you're about to buy this one, buy the remastered version, it includes a Wolstenholme song never released before by BJH and some fine alternated mixes of Negative Earth and 1974, wich are rawer and imo better than the ones originally released.

A definate 5 stars-ranking!

'Ring of changes' is an album that attracks me and makes me a bit angry at the same time. The attractiveness lies almost entirely in the Lees' compositions, albeit that 'Just a day away'' certainly not ranks amongst his strongest renditions. But compared to the songs Les Holroyd delivered for the album it was not too hard to produce a listenable one. 'Fifties child' is a very nice opener, with an orchestral intro, acoustic guitar chords jumping in and a very Westcoast feeling throughout the song. It illustrates Lees' affection for bands like The Eagles, Love and CSN&Y. The song has also a quite positive vibe, making you wondering why BJH looks at the world from the bright side (since they have not shown themselves too often as real optimistic, happy people). Maybe it is also because of the total different 'feel' that the next song, 'Looking from the outside' is such a disappoinment. It is dull, nothing reslly happens, it is dominantly driven by poppy keyboards while a guitar sound is completely absent. 'Teenage heart' is another Lees' song with a distinctive Westcoast-feeling. It has a simple melody and it is in a way quite dull too, as if the composer didn't know how to proceed. Still it is a better listen than the previous song. 'High wire' is synth-pop at its best. Unfortunately it sounds cheap, doesn't have a exciting melody or solo and should be forgotten immediately. 'Midnight drug' is, surprisingly, also dominated by synths although it was written by guitarist John Lees. The theme of the lyrics has occurred regularly in Lees' work and is very sympathetic to me but yet I don't like the song. It lacks a warm sound, it is too poppy, actually it should have been performed by A- Ha or the likes. 'Waiting for the right time' is another rather dull Holroyd-song. It drags on for almost 6 minutes but nothing happens. No soloing, no interesting breaks, no change of melody, it just drags on. 'Just a day away' is nice and cheerfull but it is far from essential. Again it is not a typical BJH-song at all. On the other hand, if it had been succesfull as a single (and it certainly had that potential) we would probably have judged it otherwise. In that respect it could have served for BJH as 'Follow you, follow me' did for Genesis. But BJH was not a lucky band when it comes to hit singles. And frankly, they didn't need one. The last two songs are the best of the album. Actually, 'Paraiso dos Cavalos' is John Lees at his best. It has a beautiful melody, a bit melancholic, with a stunning intro where acoustic guitar and hobo/keyboard set the stage for a story about a Spanish horse farm where Lees (with his and Holroyds family, as a matter of fact) spent some time and enjoyed it very much. The song is very strong in melody, has a good break with very intense vocals in the middle after which the main melody is picked up again. No soloing, alas, it could have had a coda as Lees played on numerous other BJH songs.' The title track is the only Holroyd song I like. It has a good melody, with a very repetitive chorus that sticks into your head immediately and works well. The overall atmosphere of the song is not much different from his other compositions but in this song it simply works well. Probably more attention was pais to this one as it was the title track, probably it was just a matter of a creative outburst.

The two last songs don't save the album as a whole. It is enjoyable but far from necessary. It is certainly not a good one to start to get to know BJH. This one ranks amongst their weakest and is therefore for collectors. Because of 'Paraiso dos cavalos' and the title track I give it 2,5 stars.