Two Ozs Of Plastic – MAN***

Prelude-The Storm/It Is As It Must Be/Spunk Box/My Name Is Jesus Smith/Parchment & Candles/Brother Arnold’s Red & White Striped Tent

Two Ozs Of Plastic was the follow up album from the Welsh progressive group Man. They were noted for their changing personnel as much as for their variety of musical styles.

“I always loved the mellow and haunting opening to this record with Prelude/The Storm creating an atmospheric ambience of the sea and cry of gulls, quite soothing just before the thrashing starts, and the hypnotic guitars lock in. Few bands of the 60s rocked this hard. All the tracks here are classic Man workouts.”

“On this, their second album, Man explored a number of different ideas and styles as they sought to define their own sound. The opening track, Prelude/The Storm sounds a lot like something by early Pink Floyd on one of their better days. After this, the music moves on to the more straightforward rock music that was to become the band's mainstay. There are a lot of rough edges to this LP, which is not really a surprise given that it dates from the earliest years of the band's career.”

“A much more diverse set, of primarily progressive driven material. The album opens with some decidedly classical sounds before developing into harder rock, and adding some semi-commercial AOR sounds to the mix as well. Clearly not very consistent either.”

“Highly varied in terms of style and form, from dreamy progressive rock to brutal blues rock. Some good tracks, some boring. Not an essential record, however the fans of early seventies rock may enjoy this.”

“Man seemed to be a band that were always changing styles. They mostly stick with a hard rock guitar sound on this album, a sort of British hard rock blues meets West Coast psychedelic guitar rock. They still make a few detours though, which is a good thing in adding a little variety to the riffs. The opening epic Prelude/The Storm does a pretty decent space rock style with piano and other sonic textures.”

“Although the band normally handled vocal harmonies well, the lead vocals on the hard rock material left a lot to be desired, sounding weak and dated. It's admirable that the band had a do-it-yourself attitude to their music, despite areas of weakness.”