ENGLAND

I go way back with this album. I discovered it in 1995 at the wee age of 19 and immediately warmed to its soothing, wistful atmosphere and melodic baroque arrangements. Amazing Blondel are a count-on-one-hand British folk group that I love, most folk I despise with a passion and don't even consider music. Therefor, to call this album "folk" may be doing it an injustice. The only kind of folksy music I can relate to has to have Medieaval and exotic overtones, lush production, and lyrical subject matter that avoids being sick and morbid. That combination of ingredients is here in full regalia. There's a great deal of recorders, lutes, strings, and classical guitars playing really beautiful music on this album, and really great vocals too that are like a Medieval Duncan Browne. In fact, the Duncan Browne/Clifford T. Ward (both have sadly passed away) school of melodic songwriter pop/folkrock is more what this is like than actual folk, and also this is more progressive in nature whilst not sounding like Gentle Giant for instance who were much more rock. There isn't rock here, but there doesn't need to be. The melodies are exquisite in their combination of wistful acoustic psychedelia (Kaliedoscope UK), Medieval atmospherics, and gentle baroque overtones. The Medieval/Baroque nexus makes this a unique album as the two time periods are much apart. Here John Gladwin and friends take them and place them into a pastoral symphony. The Side One 3 part concept is quite beautiful with my pick "Seascape-" it's difficult to choose one "highlight" though. The strangest thing I can think of about Amazing Blondel is they came out of one of the toughest, heaviest psychedelic hard rock bands Methuselah whose album is another masterpiece, but there is only one similarity here and that is how diverse the material is. However, while Methuselah overreached and could at times sound disjointed as much as I love the record, that doesn't happen on this. Side Two is just as much a masterpiece as side one is. This is an album for all seasons, and the prettiness isn't wimpy or twee at all, but really more like walking through a museum of striking artwork with soothing memories to linger in your mind forevermore. The Medieval/Baroque nexus is spliced with lots of melodic complex Nylon string guitars, recorders very upfront, and very pleasant vocals including some more "drunken Knight" moments. Now if only Hotspur could have been saved, could have been brought into the 1970s, and could have appeared on the album, but you can't ask for too much and I'm just being playful. This is a masterpiece of the melodic, and Amazing Blondel/Blondel are one of England's best bands.