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Accolade - Accolade CD (album) cover

ACCOLADE

Accolade

 

Prog Folk

3.87 | 27 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

Sean Trane
Special Collaborator
Prog Folk
4 stars First album from this English folk quintet that easily accommodated symphonic arrangements in their music as well as giving us some splendid psychedelic moments. While the music rested mostly on the two guitarists (Giltrap and Partridge), it is clear that most of their embellishments came from sax & flute player Cresswell, but also some vibraphone, from lead singer Partridge. Graced with a bizarre bucolic collage, it was released on the UK Columbia label, but received a US release as well.

Their debut album is made up of mostly shorter folk-rock songs (inferior to 3:30) except for three notable tracks, including the superb epic album-best Nature Boy (with its lengthy vibraphone solo) and the 12- mins+ most-challenging Ulysses (with its unusual phrasings and bowed bass, wild flute and strange drum patterns) and to a lesser extent the almost 5-mins Starting All Over, Again. Some of the trickier guitar parts are due to Gordon Giltrap, and it's no doubt that Accolade was probably not room enough for him to last more than one album.

In general, all off their shorter songs are lying in the folk rock realm; but never afraid to foray a bit in jazz, in rock and receiving lush string arrangements ala Moody Blues. Yup, TMB have been mentioned and it's quite understandable why: Cresswell's flute, Partridge's vocals and many of the band's arrangements are a direct inspiration of the mythic TMB. A few things do allow Accolade to have their own sound, among which the vibraphone (when in use) or the stand up bass, especially when it is bowed (as in the epic Ulysses). So in short, while a bit derivative, Accolade's debut album still manages its own personality and enthrals this old pagan of a proghead, as he's discovered yet another unearth early 70's gem.

As far as I know, neither of their albums have seen a Cd release (neither legit or boot), and it's a bloody shame because their superb psych-prog folk rock deserves much more sunlight than in its "obscure curio" status procures it.

Sean Trane | 4/5 |

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