 | In the Land of Grey and Pink (1971)Genres: canterbury |
review by thomas
On this album it’s – a little out of the ordinary – the four short songs on side A that’s the good stuff, whilst the side-long “Nine Feet Underground” is the weakest track included. There’s, however, one forgettable song also on side A, the “Love to Love You” single. No, it’s not the disco song by Tina Charles. As you may know Caravan plays the kind of progressive rock that were christened Canterbury after the place in England where Caravan, Soft Machine, Wilde Flowers, Matching Mole and others came forth. Caravan took inspirations from jazz and folk-music as well as classical music. Then they play this mix very loose and light with jazzy overtones and with very humorous or strange lyrics. Needless to say, this is not always the truth.
There is plenty of swirling organ and some nice flute and trumpet work on side A and for those of you who likes the mellotron; yes it shows up at times. These side A songs can be too jazzy and light for my taste but they managed to avoid being caught up in the “jazz-machine”. The problems with “Nine Feet Underground” are of a different kind though. This suite is not in style with side A. It’s much heavier and not as jazzy as side A. The saxophone also makes an appearance on side B. The suite is far too repetitious and uninteresting in my opinion even if there are some excellent moments too (it’s kind of hard to make a completely bad song of this length, although, in no way impossible).
Caravan is not a personal favourite of mine, but I apparently thought them good or interesting enough to motivate another shot at them (the “Cunning Stunts” album). Definitive worth checking them out.
review by daniel
At first I thought Caravan, and this my first encounter with them, dry, restrained and boring. When listening to them I waited for something to happen, for them to get carried away, if only for a second. Upon repeated listenings I have however learned to appreciate them. They are not dry, restrained and boring, they are tasteful, subtle, even and really good. There is even a minor freakout, with some heavy guitar playing and drumming, at the end of “Nine Feet Underground”. The evenness goes for the songs as well as the musicians; there are no standout tracks or performances. All are of equally high standard.
There are however some minor flaws. “Nine Feet Underground” is 22 minutes long and a bore according to some. I think it is a good 22 minute track, but it could have been a fantastic 14 minute track. Another thing concerns the instrumentation that consists of drums, bass, acoustic- and electric guitars, organ, piano, brass, flute and mellotron. It would have been nice with some more brass and a little less guitar, even though the guitar playing is good.
A good album and a fine example of the canterbury style: Sophisticated music flavoured with pop melodies.
 | Cunning Stunts (1975)Genres: rock, progressive pop, progressive rock |
review by thomas
This 1975 offering makes me kind of sad because the five short songs on the album sounds so mediocre; the almost twenty minutes long “The Dabsong Conshirtoe” on the other hand makes a better impression. The problem with the other songs is that they are done in a pop style that I don’t appreciate. The Canterbury sound is for the most of the time missing completely, replaced by an up-to-date rock sound, it’s Caravan trying to rock out and they fail. On “Welcome the Day” they even flirt funk and boogie, surely not Caravan’s strongest musical territory. Now I for one always welcome musical experiments and the trying of new things and ideas. The problem on this record is that it doesn’t work.
Unfortunately the recruitment of former Curved Air bassist – the excellent Mike Wedgwood – doesn’t help at all, neither does the return of Dave Sinclair on keyboards. Newcomer Geoff Richardson on viola and flute is a welcomed addition to the sound but his performances are noticed mainly on the 20-minute suite. This suite has some interesting moments and holds up pretty good, although it’s not very strong. It has some major jazzy bits in the middle that I don’t care for but on the other hand it has some really good bits of symphonic rock too.
On the whole a very weak album, an album that I don’t listen to very much; it’s even poorer than “In the Land of the Grey and Pink”. Side A is especially disappointing and boring and side B isn’t much better. It seems that I just don’t get Caravan – I would rather take Cressida’s “Asylum” any time over one of Caravan’s albums.
