THE ALBUM

Caravan

Canterbury Scene

2.32 | 156 ratings

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octopus-4
Special Collaborator
RIO/Avant/Zeuhl,Neo & Post/Math Teams

First of all let me say that my vinyl copy of the album doesn't have that anonymous cover sheet that's on PA. It has a sort of aztec pyramid with "The Album" written in the stones.....

Unfortunately it's the only "epic" thing that I can find in it.

The return of David Sinclair didn't bring all the good that one could have expected and what they were perhaps intending as a sort of reunion resulted in a big disappointment.

The opener is enough to understand what this album is made for. "Heartbreaker" is a mixture of Supertramp and Climax Blues Band. Nothing to do with the band of Winter Wine. The finger picking of "Corner Of My Eye" is not bad if you like country music. I personally like this song, but it's absolutely non-essential.

"What'cha Gonna Tell Me" is a partially successful attempt to sound as in the past, but it's clear that it's not Jimmy Hastings to play the flute. The piano riff is good and the song sounds "Caravan enough".

I'm relistening to this album after years and it's not so awful as I was remembering. "Piano Player" is not a masterpiece but I don't dislike it.

Going to the B side we find a piece of trivial brit-pop like "Make Yourself At Home" followed by the disco-funky of "Golden Mile". Two tracks to skip, but after them the brit chill-out of "Bright Shiny Day" is not that bad. A kind of newage....

What do Caravan have to do with Reggae? It's not their pot. This song makes me thing to Wishbone Ash. They have a little piece of reggae in Pilgrimage, but their one is good. At least this should have been "reggae" also in the chorus.

"Keeping Up The Fences" just doesn't do anything for me. I had totally forgotten this song, probably because I've rarely been able to run the whole album in a shot. This song is not bad if you like things like Wishbone Ash "Front Page News", but this is not what one can expect from Caravan.

I'm undecided between one and two stars. Looking at my other one-star ratings on PA I think I can be generous and go for two, but if you are not fans there's no reason to invest money in this stuff.

octopus-4 | 2/5 | 2011-4-4

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