Barclay James Harvest - BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST***

Taking Some Time On/Mother Dear/The Sun Will Never Shine/When The World Has Woken/Good Love Child/ The Iron Maiden/Dark Now My Sky

Eponymous debut album from the Lancashire progressive band Barclay James Harvest. Their lack of consistent songwriting meant that they were unable to effectively rebut the often dismissive put down of being ‘the poor man’s Moody Blues’.

“What a frustrating introduction to a rather frustrating band. The album opener Taking Some Time On is a fantastic song, everything about it is great, the writing, the vocals, the playing and it is completely unrepresentative of not only this album, but the rest of this band's career. The major problem I have is their complete inability to come up with an original idea.”

“The debut album by Barclay James Harvest still has some psychedelic elements here and there even if most of the material is progressive. The long and epic Dark Now My Sky is the ultimate climax of this record and it's a really special number, but the rest of the material is pretty inconsistent overall.”

“The poor man's Moody Blues actually don't deserve that tag on this their progressive sounding debut. For example opener Taking Some Time On absolutely outshines The Moodies in the rocking out stakes, whilst Mother Dear is far darker and more baroque than anything the Brummies ever offered up.”

“The opener Taking Some Time On is a bit of upbeat psychedelic rock. It's really not a bad song, but it may raise wrong expectations for the listener, especially having their later output in mind. Mother Dear sounds more like the BJH we all know, its a song driven by an acoustic guitar and some neat orchestration.”

“The album contains an unabashed prog epic in Dark Now My Sky, which I find consistently engaging yet nowhere phenomenal. The album is at its best with the more subdued folk prog.”

“Frustratingly marginal effort, as all their LPs turned out to be. They were capable of greatness, but what we get here is merely pleasant stuff, with occasional flashes of excellence.”

“This debut certainly has some diverse styles to say the least, Taking Some Time On and Good Love Child are quite rocking pieces, while Mother Dear has some orchestration and Dark Now My Sky is progressive rock all the way.”