Spirit Of Love - C.O.B***

Spirit Of Love/Music Of Ages/Soft Touches Of Love/Banjo Land/Wade In The Water/Scranky Black Farmer/ Evening Air/Serpent's Kiss/Sweet Slavery/When He Came Home

Spirit Of Love was the debut album from the psychedelic folk group Clive’s Original Band to give them their full title. Clive Palmer was a founding member of The Incredible String Band but left before they embraced psychedelia.

“Acoustic guitar driven, semi-folk with psych influences, quite naturally sounding very similar to The Incredible String Band. This is a sound I don't normally get very excited about, but this LP includes a real surprise in Serpent's Kiss.”

“Clive Palmer was a founding member of the Incredible String Band, and appeared on the first album. For this release he's gathered a similar batch of mates to collaborate with, and although a fine effort, he can't match the outfit he left behind. The first half of this release is a grand mix of harmonized weird folk ditties, but the deeper we get into the album things tend to run out of steam. I'd still rate most of this pretty high though.”

“The songs have a drone like quality with fixed chords over moving bass lines or the slide notes of the dulcitar. More lively are the opening Spirit Of Love with a hymn like vibe with strummed acoustic, punching piano chords, celestial choirs and an acoustic solo, and the lyrically disturbing Sweet Slavery with 12-string strumming and haunting cello, organ and vocal lines.”

“This is certainly folk, it’s pretty twisted and dark and is the perfect accompaniment to the String Band, although the title track is actually fairly straight ahead sing-along folk. Once past that song, you get into some really dark, ancient sounding music, dominated by voice, acoustic guitar, the odd distant, echoey recorder and the group's very own instrument - the dulcitar - an altered dulcimar that creates a sitarlike sound.”

“It's low-key, almost to the point of being subdued, melodic British folk with that quasi-psychedelic mystical tinge characteristic of ISB. Yet the vocals are more tuneful and soothing if, undeniably, less adventurous. The arrangements are nicely varied, too, something else that sets this apart from the standard British folk record.”