BACK TO FRONT

Caravan's Back To Front is notable because it's the reunion album - the original quartet of Richard and Dave Sinclair, Richard Coughlan, and Pye Hastings got back together (Hastings and Coughlan having been the only consistent members of the band since beginning) and assembled a studio album for the first time since In the Land of Grey and Pink - and alas, with the death of Coughlan in 2013, it would prove to be the last time.

The long-absent Richard even gets to lead off the album with one of his songs - Back To Herne Bay Front, a gentle pop- ish number about a visit to the seaside - but anyone hoping to get back to that grey and pink land of yore would be disappointed by this. In keeping with recent Caravan albums, this is something of a pop-prog release rather than a prog-oriented thing; the band hadn't put together a truly epic track since the Grubby Little Oik suite on Blind Dog At St Dunstans', and show no intention of doing so here.

In some respects, this allows for a nice level of stylistic range - the album sounds even more diverse than The Album in this respect - since in effect each band member is contributing their own songs and doesn't seem to feel obliged to stick too close to a single defined sound. That said, the group members' musical trajectories more or less work together. Just as Caravan had been in a pop-prog vein for a good while now, Richard Sinclair had been onboard for some of Camel's more successful attempts at pop-prog blends (and indeed Dave Sinclair had also joined Camel for Breathless).

It makes sense, then, that for this reunion album the group members would contribute songs in this sort of pop-prog vein: if you've found common ground after so long apart from each other, concentrating on that is just sensible. And to be fair, from their debut album to songs like Golf Girl, the original Caravan lineup had included a dose of pop sensibilities into their formula right from the start. Still, I can see why fans for whom the long, epic Caravan workouts were the point of the exercise would find little to enjoy here (though the closing number of Proper Job/Back to Front attains some of the climactic drama that classic Caravan were so good at).

For my part, I think this is just as charming a prog-pop album as, say, Camel's Raindances or Breathless, which thanks to the presence of Richard Sinclair's voice this would make a great companion piece to. Adding Mel Collins on sax for the wistful Visions of Hollywood just makes it all the better (and makes the Camel comparisons all the more apt).