NOMADNESS

Strawbs

Prog Folk

2.57 | 91 ratings

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Easy Livin
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Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin

Nogladness

This album was released after "Ghosts", but in the same year, and in retrospect indicated that the Strawbs' Halcyon days were over. For the first time since the arrival of Rick Wakeman (who ironically guests on the album), in the band's early days they found themselves without a permanent keyboard player. Perhaps, after so many fine and original albums too much was now expected of the band, but "Nomadness" is nonetheless disappointing.

The songs on "Nomadness" are all relatively short, leaning much more towards pop structures. Tracks such as "To be free", "Tokyo Rosie", and "Back on the farm" are lightweight upbeat numbers, decent toe-tappers, but completely lacking any depth.

"Little sleepy" is yet another lightweight, up tempo pop song, with only Dave Lambert distinctive voice to distinguish it from a thousand and one similar tracks. It bears more than a passing resemblance to "Stormy down" from "Bursting at the seams", and also to the Rolling Stones cod-country song "Dead Flowers" (from the "Sticky fingers" album).

There are a couple of notable numbers. The heartfelt "Golden Salamander" maintains the simplicity, with Cousins singing almost unaccompanied, but in this case, the track is delicate and moving. The final track "The Promised land" is somewhat controversial in Strawbs circles, some love it, others hate it. It has a powerful, keyboard laden refrain and story lyrics, with slight echoes of "New world" from "Grave new world".

All in all, a pretty poor effort from a great band, signalling the end of their most creative period, while implying a willingness to tolerate the average.

Easy Livin | 2/5 | 2005-11-28

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