AMARYLLIS

Third album, but recorded at the same time as its predecessor, partially out of fear for not getting a third shot (some among Decca's executives were against BL&D), and the tought of making a double album (but this was simply to ISB copycat), Amaryllis came out a few months after their second, but benefiting from the guest musician (including Pentangle's Danny Thompson, whom acted as a full-time member), Amaryllis also benefiting from a splendid psychedelic artwork, even if quite different than its predecessor Captain Shanon.

Impressively starting out on the remarkable intro (2'20") of the sidelong title track's first movement, Out Of The Darkness, where Pentangle's Thompson and Cox work great wonders and the feeling becomes Spanish (almost Flamenco by the guitar) once the descending spiral is through, then McNiven's voice and usual ISB-like acid folk take over. The second movement the 10-mins+ Zoroaster's Prophecy starts rather well too, but its second section is hampered by a stupid idea: a Jewish harp should never be used elsewhere than solo on a cowboy campfire, but later on there is an excellent passage where McNiven and Rew work a bit like the Airplane's Balin and Slick. The closing third movement called Light is a bit dwarfed by the other two movement.

The flipside is made of four unrelated songs of which Rew's Brother John is easily the better track, even if the other three are of a honest ISB niveau errrrr... LB&D level.

Although a good acid folk album, Amaryllis suffers from the usual rare record syndrome (it was with Leafhound's sole album the smallest amount of record pressed - or distributed before destroyed - by a major company), it contaminated of the Quality Ultra Rare Exaggeration Vinyl Syndrome (sounds painful, right??), but thankfully to the Cd's existence, this is only in rare occasions harmful to the wallet as it once was during vinyl-only days. I wouldn't call anything by BL&D anywhere close to essential (especially if we're talking about progressive folk), but if you're a fan of the acid-folk genre, no doubt this will take on more interest.