FULL HOUSE

After reaching their career high with L&L, FC was to almost implode losing two important members, both gone to pursue their own project. Denny formed her own group, named after her first Fairport song Fotheringay, feeling she didn't have the songwriting space enough and sort of returned towards a more US folk in her later solo album after a second run with Fairport in the mid 70's. Hutchings was the most traditionalist of the bunch and left to found Steeleye Span (he wouldn't stay long, though), but he thought Fairport was selling its soul with L&L..So he was replaced by Dave Pegg on bass (much later seen in Tull) and the group went out as a quintet and produced the Full House album, the last to be considered a classic Fairport, which I find a bit unfair given Babacombe Lee (and to lesser extent Angel delight) is still to come. This album's name is dedicated to their communal housing, a derelict pub the band had just moved in, creating a lively atmosphere in the premises..

And some of that spirit seeped in the songwriting and general preparation of the album, and despite losing two members, you'd never tell from listening to FH. Indeed if you don't Denny's voice anymore, her absence is quickly dealt away with by instilling a power, not yet heard in their albums so far, Starting on the average sing-along Walk A While (I tend these are cheap songwriting),, followed by a now-traditional jig medley Dirty Linen (I could do without the jig medley AND its title), the album starts rather average until... The album's highlight (you guessed it ;-)) is Sloth a 9-mins mini epic that FC does so well, in line with many Sailor's Groves Lin moments. The flipside contains four shorter songs (well there is another jig medley lasting 6-mins+, this time around) that are your average usual Fairport self, although there was another foreseen (Poor Will and the Happy Hangman) that was taken out for whatever reasons, now reinstalled but can be seen as a first bonus. In either case with or without Poor Will, the original album stood as yet another good Fairport album, but it's clear that there was a "FC album' formula (jig medleys and mini-epics) that was clearly wearing thin..

On the other hand, the remastered (and expanded) Cd version shuffles a bit the order of ruining of tracks of the vinyl, boasting some four bonus tracks (even five if you count the Poor Will track), two of them being a non-album single (again not much more than average for FC), a third being a mono version of one of them and finally the whopping 10-mins+ Bonny Bunch Of Roses (later used for an album's title), yet another small gem in the Sloth, Sailor & Groves mould. Indeed FH is testimony of FC's incredible depth in terms of songwriters after having lost so many members, and lead performers, but to this writer, the FC formula is turning rather weary and bored (outside the few exciting moments) writer (yours truly) that is lucid enough to still recommend you this album as one of the band's best.

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