HARMONY ROW

Third album from JB, but this time, he drops the Colosseum connection to snatch some Nucleus (Ian Carr's band) members, just at the time where the band's original line-up was imploding. To say the least, despite both having played on JB's Tailor album, John Marshall and Chris Spedding are relatively odd choices, given the album's shorter song format. I've always failed to see the link of the album's relatively positive title and its dreary artwork, and to be honest, the album's all-too-wordy nature (it seems that Pete Brown was never this loquacious) always discouraged me of investigating further. As usual, JB sings, plays keys and bass.

A few songs have a hard time hiding their inspiration (or is it that they inspired someone else's?) and sometimes, JB evens sounds a tad Cat Stevens-ish in Folk Song; while some songwriting is definitely kistchy and disputable: Royal Wood and the closing almost-stinky Spanish-crooner Consul At Sunset. And it's in the simpler more RnR songs that JB's often-too busy bass playing is mostly evident, as Letter Of Thanks proves. Among the album's highlights is the impressive and adventurous Morning Story, and while the vocals of Smiles And Grins might just be a little rough/harsh, the playing is brilliant.

Harmony Row has always been an album I've felt uncomfortable with, partly because it isn't all that accessible, too much all over the map, and even noisy in parts. To be honest, if it wasn't for the album's two longer songs, I'd give it a much smaller rating.