Goodbye & Hello – TIM BUCKLEY****

No Man Can Find The War/Carnival Song/Pleasant Street/Hallucinations/I Never Asked To Be Your Mountain/ Once I Was/Phantasmagoria In Two/Knight Errant/Goodbye & Hello/Morning Glory

American folk singer and songwriter Tim Buckley never enjoyed great commercial success during his short lifetime. He gained the most plaudits for his second LP Goodbye & Hello. (US:171)

"An album that shines in every way you would expect a folk record to do. Rich in it's instrumental, his excellent voice plays a huge part in the crafty compositions. While most of the songs share a consistency in sound and tempo, they vary the most in use of supportive instruments. A song like Pleasant Street might sound like a Dylanesque folk-rock song, but on Hallucinations the drums are dropped and in exchange you hear a psychedelic soundscape with a smooth bassline behind it."

"Some outstanding moments mark this album's true brilliance. A perfect freeze-frame of Tim when he was still clearly learning about the world, but also allowed his almost naivety/arrogance to create some really wonderfully deep vulnerabilities, from which he's plucked some magical moments. While the lyrics are approaching those of his psychedelic infused works to come, the music is pretty much standard folk rock."

"There's so much to love about this album. It latches on to the psychedelic age but somehow transcends it. The sound is best summed up in the epic title track, but that's not to say it's the only thing to like here. There's dark psychedelia in songs such as Hallucinations and Carnival Song. There's soaring emotion in I Never Asked To Be Your Mountain and No Man Can Find The War. There's also comic relief on Knight-Errant, and on the closing Morning Glory Buckley 'out-Dylans' Dylan himself. This is for anyone who wants a serious folky take on psychedelia, without being restrained by the bounds of the genre."

"His albums always have an earthly soulful vibe. A man in love with his art. His most powerful instrument, and one of the most notable and beautiful throughout the music world, is that harrowing, deep, undeniably sorrowful voice. It takes his music and firmly places it onto a new plateau and floats it down a wonderful stream."

"Goodbye & Hello is in my estimation his finest studio album because it highlights his extraordinary vocal talent. His voice was like no other artist. Excellent album."