PETER BARDENS [AKA: WRITE MY NAME IN THE DUST]

The album is opened by a short piano ragtime. It's not unusual: Caravan have placed "Tollington Park Rag" at the end of their second album, but also Rick Wakeman and Keith Emerson put some ragtime interludes in their albums. So "North End Road" is not a bad ragtime.

Organ based with a touch of R&B specially in the background vocals and strongly smelling of flower power, "Write My Name in The Dust" is an excellent song and the most successful single ever released by Bardens as solo artist.

"Down So Long" is unusually hard for Peter Bardens. It's a blues-rock song with a bit of psychedelia mainly in the long organ solo. There's much of Fleetwood Mac in this song.

After the acid rock something more British: "Sweet Honey Wine" is son of its times, or a bit earlier. I hear the influence of Moody Blues.

"Tear Down The Wall" may have inspired Roger Waters' The Trial...I'm joking. This is a funky-rock song in a Motown style. Not properly my pot. Barely listenable. The repeated chorus is quite boring. However when it changes pitch I hear a symptom of Camel. The organ solo is fine, but it's exactly what you can hear in a police movie of the early 70s.

"Simple Song" with whistle and acoustic guitar is between the Beatles of Her Majesty and the early Caravan. two funny minutes.

"My House" is opened by a Procol Harum's style organ, and also the guitar solo which follows reminds to that great British band with a touch of psychedelia more.

"Feeling High" is a sort of acid rock very flower power, something good for the soundtrack of Hair.

"Blueser", a slow chillout blues base with grotesque vocals closes the album.

I don't know if we can call it prog, effectively Bardens is in the prog-related section, but the album is not too bad. It's only that it doesn't follow a direction. It's like Bardens has tried to compose different kinds of songs to catch a bigger audience, or it's just reflecting that fact that he was in the middle of a musical transition. As a result, this is far from the heights reached with Camel, but still a good and absolutely non-essential album.

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