Confessions Of The Mind - THE HOLLIES***

Survival Of The Fittest/Man Without A Heart/Little Girl/Isn't It Nice/Perfect Lady Housewife/Confessions Of A Mind/Lady Please/Frightened Lady/Too Young To Be Married/Separated/I Wanna Shout

With the departure of Graham Nash the credibility of The Hollies as an album band took a knocking. Confessions Of The Mind finds the group struggling to find an identity. (UK:30)

"Average mechanical pop music - listenable, but the jovial excitement is long gone. Give credit to the professionalism, though."

"This is typically for them, vocal harmony pop, mixed with some slightly less commercial rock, but mostly somewhat softer material. Surprisingly, this also contains some comparatively darker cuts than normally found on a Hollies' album, rendering this among their more progressive releases."

"This one has a lot of great songs on it like Too Young To Be Married and others. The harmonies are perfect, and the songwriting is first rate, so this one should be in your rock pop collection."

"The Clarke/Hicks/Sylvester version of the group had fully blossomed into its own, so much that it was able to cut a rousing version of a leftover Nash song Survival Of The Fittest. This is the final Hollies album from the bubblegum era and must stand as a landmark of 'haute bubblegum' with its Pete Townsend inspired mini-opera title track and the superb domestic soap operas Too Young To Be Married and Little Girl."

"While the group's never been strong with words, they reach new lows on Frightened Lady, admonishing us to 'get together' before there's a war. The music is equally flaccid, abounding with tired hooks and rote blues progressions that still allow for some satisfying instrumental work in the multi-part title track. Their harmonies are still choice too, but as time goes on, that's all The Hollies have left going for them."

"This is where I draw the line for liking the Hollies as an album group. Survival Of The Fittest is the obvious high point even as a Nash era leftover. Tony Hicks contributes a lot more songwriting than usual but to my dismay doesn't sing a lick. Lady Please is one of those songs and has a country-rock flavour to it. The song Separated is interesting with its weird bongo beats and random background hollering. There's not much else to recommend here besides the title track, a mini rock-opera with lots of different parts, written by the lead-guitarist Tony Hicks who dominates this album."