REVEL WEIRD & WILD

Somewhat unjustly obscured by the more successful British folk rock bands of their day, SPRIGUNS also didn't do a lot of distinguish themselves from the pack. With a strong but not very emotional female singer in Mandy Morton, they invited comparisons to FAIRPORT CONVENTION and STEELEYE SPAN, which became more pronounced when Tim Hart of Steeleye produced a couple of their albums, "Revel Weird and Wild" being the second. Here, the lineage is more to the "Hark the Village Wait" era, meaning that it was a bit tame for 1976 when "All Around My Hat" had just frolicked and rolled its way up the charts, but when even the old guard was losing audience.

Distinctiveness and timing aside, this is a decent folk rock album albeit with only a few progressive qualities. These surface mostly, and appropriately, in the longer tracks like "Outlandish Knight" and, especially "Lord Lovell", both propelled by the acousto-electric violins of Tom Ling, expertly fused with lead guitar from Dick Powell. A couple of songs are augmented by the pedal steel guitars of BJ Cole, but fall short of decamping from the safety of the confines of their genre. While the penmanship is credited to Mandy Morton, most of the material is clearly spliced from traditional sources.

Recommended for fans of the aforementioned groups as well as MELLOW CANDLE and the current band GALLEY BEGGAR, "Revel Weird and Wild" is really neither, but is still an agreeable and fleetingly adventurous slice of mid 1970s folk rock, UK style.