|
|
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A strong successor to Sgt. Pepper, though not as humorous, May 14, 2003
The early Association ("Along Comes Mary" and "Pandora's Golden Heebie Jeebies") and the Left Banke ("Walk Away Renee", "Pretty Ballerina) started the baroque-rock ball rolling. Procol Harum picked it up and ran hard with it for their first two albums. This, their second, followed close on the heels of the Beatles' 'Sgt. Pepper' and was both influenced by it, and carried parts of its ideation to greater heights/depths. The first song, the up-tempo "Quite Rightly So" combines baroque compositional rigor with stellar organ solos to rival even "A Whiter Shade of Pale". Its lyrics eschewed the earlier song's surrealism in favor of a more soul-searching text, on a smaller, less mystical scale than George Harrison's "Within You Without You" from 'Pepper'. The title cut, "Shine On Brightly", follows with a serious return to the surreal, the lyrics upping the intensity via meandering metaphors winding around the listener like the coils of a brazen serpent. There is [weak]humor and/or irony in the psychological allegory that unfolds here. Glorious organ solos continue, intensified by Robin Trower's searing guitar licks, which inject their purgatorial eloquence and strident power. With "Skip Softly My Moonbeams", the music and lyrics become more hellish - carrying over the brink into serious spiritual/psychological crisis. Sounds of a brutish and clownish nature enhance a sense of desperation not heard since "A Christmas Camel" on the first album. There only the lyrics told the complete story - the music was impassioned, but not so expressionistic like here - with sinister, percussive licks from Trower's guitar, Fisher's organ glissandos, and even the backup singer(s). On "Wish Me Well", the bottom falls out - we enter the underworld. The music becomes a kind of 'psychedelicized' blues-rock. The mood lightens with "Rambling On", though its humor remains self-effacing. The singer ruminates on the state of being trapped between worlds - it's like being lost inside a bad tarot reading (or dreaming of it). The combination of a slow vaudevillian sound punctuated by the churchy organ solo is hardened by the rock underpinnings of drums and guitars. The clown is ready to be hung out to dry. "Magdalene, My Regal Zonophone" - a glimmer of light, or hope, or warmth in the heart turns out to be a calm before the storm. Gorgeously moving piano accompaniment [in waltz time, with warm bass guitar tones and snare drum] plays underneath, recapitulating hopes expressed by "Quite Rightly So"; but added to this glimmering openness is apprehension. As the song winds down and fades toward oblivion, in the distance someone comically/pathetically intones through a megaphone "Magdalene, my regal zonophone" a number of times, in rhythm with the band. It's really the now-dissociated protagonist of our saga, farther and further beside/outside himself. "In Held Twas I" Spoken soliloquy to ominous simulations of Tibetan chanting - rollicking circus music - huge choral textures - tender piano nocturnes - and powerfully endowed guitar solos - all play their respective roles in this sublimely conceived conjuration. The whole builds its immense architecture in word and sound, mood and motive, sometimes in quiet serenity, other times as if howling, thunderously through the eye of the hurricane. All these motifs work together to symbolize the possibility of spiritual rebirth and redemption obtained through eclectic rather than narrow, dogmatic means. Don't miss this!
|
is Procol Harum's 
