BJH FEATURING LES HOLROYD: REVOLUTION DAYS

Barclay James Harvest

Crossover Prog

2.34 | 48 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

Easy Livin
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin

Turn, turn, turn

With BJH's two main songwriters and singers firmly entrenched in separate camps while sharing joint custody of the BJH name, releases under the BJH name are now either by "BJH Through the eyes of John Lees" or "BJH featuring Les Holroyd". It would be reasonable to expect such releases to contain songs which are faithful to the tenets which identified an album as being by BJH. To that extent, this offering by the Les Holroyd BJH (which includes the late Mel Prichard, but excludes Lees and Woolstenholme), is indeed a bona fide BJH album.

One of the strengths of the band when they were a foursome however, was the fact that Holroyd's softer vocals were complimented by Lees deeper, often rougher voice. With all the tracks here being sung by Holroyd, his vocals are not really strong or interesting enough to sustain a whole album. He might have been wiser to pursue BJH's early orchestral leanings more, with longer more progressive pieces in the way of "Dark now my sky". Instead he goes for a generally more commercial sound, even veering towards ZZ Top on "That was then.. this is now".

Unfortunately, the songwriting is not strong enough make the tracks commercially appealing to a new audience. Holroyd does chose to rework one older BJH number "Life is for living", but its hard to see why. Initially, it sounds like a demo version of the song, and certainly adds nothing to the original which appeared on "Turn of the tide".

A pleasant, but ultimately disappointing BJH badged album. The sooner Holroyd and Lees patch up their differences and decide to produce some memorable BJH work again, the better.

Easy Livin | 3/5 | 2004-5-17

MEMBERS LOGIN ZONE

As a registered member (register here if not), you can post rating/reviews (& edit later), comments reviews and submit new albums.

You are not logged, please complete authentication before continuing (use forum credentials).

Share this BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST review

Social review comments () BETA

Review related links

Send comments to Easy Livin
Report this review (#30550)
Buy BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST music online with PA partners
Show all BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST MP3/Stream
Go to BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST page for videos, full discography with ratings, reviews and much more
Go to BJH Featuring Les Holroyd: Revolution Days page for more details, where to buy and ratings/reviews
Search the Forum for BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST related discussions