A SALTY DOG

On their third album, Procol Harum continue to plough the same early progressive rock furrow which they'd sketched out on their debut and polished on Shine On Brightly. At points the lack of really substantive musical development over the preceding albums threatens to make this one feel a little redundant, though there's still a lot of enjoyment to be had - the outro to Pilgrim's Progress, in particular, has a delicacy and beauty hitherto unseen in the Procol Harum repertoire. There's more straight-ahead blues this time around too, which makes this one a little more diverse than Shine On Brightly. Not their best, but not all that bad either.