STRAWBS

This debut from Strawbs is a gentle and peaceful piece of music. Mostly acoustic, it features some fine vocal harmonies (Pieces Of 79 And 15), some weak song as well (All The Little Ladies and Oh How She Changed). The opening track is too much religious for my ears (The Man Who Called himself Jesus).

The music you can find here is hardly essential and sounds pretty much outdated. The psychedelic and early Floyd oriented Tell Me What You See In is my fave out here. There are some nice Oriental influence as well (percussions, violin).

When one listens to Or Am I Dreaming, it is impossible not to think about The Boxer (Simon & Garfunkel). Paul Simon wrote it in 68 though.

The album weakens substantially from there on and offers some childish mood and frankly poor songs like Poor Jimmy Wilson and Where Am I. The closing track is another good part of this debut album. It is much more constructed and consists of much more mature music. There is a fine keyboards play in the background, and the crescendo approach is rather efficient. A second highlight.

I will upgrade this album from five out of ten to three stars mainly thanks to three songs (but which accounts for almost half of the running time). But, be aware that the band will sound more progressive in later releases (some years after this release).