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Greenslade - Spyglass Guest CD (album) cover

SPYGLASS GUEST

Greenslade

 

Symphonic Prog

3.35 | 159 ratings

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Tarcisio Moura
Prog Reviewer
2 stars I was never really a big fan of Greenslade, even if some of my friends were at the time. Still, nobody would call these englishman an essential or groundbreaking band in any time. The reason I decided to write a review about this album, besides the fact that I owned the old vynil copy, is because it does contain Greensladeīs best song ever, the wonderful Joie de vivre. It is a superb song, with great keyboards, fantastic melodies and a beautiful violin solo by Graham Smith. It is by far not the best track here but the greatest thing Greenslade ever wrote or played.

Unfortunatly I bought the album after hearing that song, hoping the rest of it would be of the the same caliber. Not that SpyglassGuest is bad. It does have good moments like the opener instrumental Spirit Of the Dance. But the quality of the music in general is quite uneven with good and bad moments (like the very whimisical Little Red Fry-up, probably the worst thing they have ever done). And nothing is even close to Joie De Vivre. Like so many bands at the time, Greenslade had fantastic musicians: I really think that their rhythm section (Tony Reeves and Andrew McCulloch) is one of the best in prog. But great musicians donīt always mean great songwriters. And thatīs the groupīs weakest point. So it is no surprise they had sparkles of greatness here and there, but were unable to deliver a real strong work that would eventualy take them to the first league. And small wonder they did not last long either.

Conclusion: nice record, with some good moments (and a brilliant one, as I mentioned), but with some weak parts too. The instrumental bits are the best, with real nice array of analog keyboards. If you like keyboard driven bands, you should give it a try. 2,5 stars.

Tarcisio Moura | 2/5 |

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