NICOLA

Rudderlessly lying in wait for PENTANGLE's illustrious history to commence, JANSCH marks time with this often depressive, sometimes angry sometimes pastoral and sometimes ingratiatingly sunny release. Acoustic blues, folk and naive 1960s pop are some of the outfits modeled.

It doesn't take long to go wrong, and "Go Your Way my Love", while actually decent, certainly hints at boredom being the likely cause of the departure. In a rare moment of thematic continuity, "Woe is Love my Dear" is really part 2 of the self induced self pity, but musically this is much more successful. It and the title track which follow result in an early pinnacle that is never even approached. Arrangements by David G Palmer which presumably include the uncredited flute and strings add luster to both tracks, to which NICK DRAKE may have listened.

After this, a combination of ouch and meh, with a few trad styled blues numbers like "Come Back Baby" (geez, again?) and "Sweet Little Sunshine" intermixed with his DONOVAN interpretation, minus the likeability ("Love is Teasing"), 2 or more Jansch's singing at once, netting the expected results ("Rabbit Run"), a PET CLARK impression ("Life Depends on Love", "Wish my Baby was Here") experiments, ditto. All the virtuosity could be summoned but it doesn't help the cause, though if I had to nominate a tune from the backsliding backside it would be the more thankfully understated "Box of Love".

I was beginning to wonder if any of these supposed classics would crack the 3 star barrier, without realizing that the first such case would fall through the floor. Not quite 2.5 stars

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