WHO KNOWS WHERE THE TIME GOES?

After having been quite impressed with this band's 1995 album Jewel In The Crown, I started to investigate the few releases that surrounded it; the previous two albums Red And Gold and Five Seasons from 1989 and 1990 respectively as well as this subsequent one from 1997. I must say that I was quite surprised of what I found. While none of these albums are as good as the excellent Jewel In The Crown, all these albums are good and they beat many, if not most, Fairport albums from the 60's and 70's, in my opinion! (I will now continue to investigate this band's 80's and 00's releases as well.)

Who Knows Where The Time Goes? is another good, latter-day Fairport Convention album. There is the familiar mix between instrumental up-tempo jigs and more conventional Folk rock songs. Some songs here rock quite hard for Fairport standards and there is a strong presence of electric guitar - very well played. And together with fiddle that creates a quite powerful sound. This is clearly more rock than Folk. As on the other recent albums, the instrumental attack includes some non-standard instruments like electric piano, mandolin, clavinet, harpsichord, harmonium and others. But I would not say that this is progressive rock, but Prog related is a very appropriate characterisation of the band and I am certain that I am not the only Prog fan who would enjoy this music.

Compared to the concept album that was Jewel In The Crown, I would say that this album is slightly less progressive, slightly less consistent and slightly less good overall. But this is still very good. The first seven songs here are great, but the album tends to slightly lose its direction towards the end. There is a cover of Jethro Tull's Life's A Long Song, which is an interesting choice, but does not add very much to the original. It is clear that there is a strong mutual appreciation between Fairport Convention and Jethro Tull which makes this band interesting for Jethro Tull fans.

There are two live bonus tracks on my CD version and I strongly recommend to skip them! Heard It Through The Grape Vine is awful and totally out of place and does not fit the band's style at all.

Go for Jewel In The Crown first, and if you like that one you will not be disappointed with Who Knows Where The Time Goes? It is quite surprising how well these latter-day albums hold up with classics like Full House or Babbacombe Lee.

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