Album title: Broken Barricades
Artist: Procol Harum
Nationality: English
Label: Chrysalis
Chronology: Fifth
Grade: B
Tracklisting: Simple Sister/ Broken Barricades/ Memorial Drive/ Luskus Delph/ Power Failure/ Poor Dreamer/ Playmate of the Mouth/ Poor Mohammed
Comments: So far, I’ve yet to hear a bad album from Procol Harum. I suppose something has to give at some point, but I’m hopeful this will be another classic. What I’ve heard so far makes me wonder how come they weren’t more successful, but that can often be down to a weak label or a lack of interest in pushing the band, as well as other factors. This doesn’t seem to have had any luck in the charts either, but since when was that a measure of the quality of a prog rock album? A pretty powerful start on piano and guitar for “Simple Sister”, with quite the jam going on; sounds like there are strings or even an orchestra in there, but I don’t see any credited. Solid opening anyway, a better opener than on their previous album, though that proved to be an aberration.
The title track is a sort of semi-ballad with ringing keyboards and a very progressive rock sound while there’s a more straightforward rock style to “Memorial Drive”, perhaps significant that it’s one of only three written by Robin Trower. Great piano on it. Bit too basic for me though. “Luskus Delph” (what?) is better, much more laid back and gentle with shimmering guitar and piano and I would have to again note that there is some sort of strings accompaniment there; if not, then whoever is playing the keys is doing a hell of a job considering it’s 1971. “Power Failure” then proves me wrong in blaming Trower for the more standard rock fare, as it’s written by Gary Brooker but is pretty unremarkable.
Trower’s next contribution, ironically, is more prog than the last one, with a swirly atmospheric sound and rising almost eastern guitar. The vocal on “Poor Dreamer” is almost spoken in parts, very slow and laconic, far superior to the previous track. So far this album is turning out to be a mixed bag, some really good songs with some really not so good. This is really good. So is “Playmate of the Mouth” (I see what they did there) which has a semi-blues feel to it that reminds me of early Billy Joel. Some really cutting guitar from Trower on this. The final track would have their studio bombed were it released today, but back in 1971 you could say the “m” word without having a horde of crazies descend upon you shouting “Allah Ackbar!” (It’s a trap!) and as it happens “Poor Mohammed”, featuring the final - and I mean final; he left after this album - vocal performance of Trower is another annoyingly ordinary rock track, which kind of underlines the problem with this album. It’s just too inconsistent.
Favourite track(s): Simple Sister, Broken Barricades, Luskus Delph, Playmate of the Mouth, Poor Dreamer
Least favourite track(s): Memorial Drive, Power Failure, Poor Mohammed
Overall impression: It’s probably the weakest and most unbalanced PH album I’ve heard to date. It struggles towards greatness but falls short due to too many meh songs. Maybe now that Trower has f
ucked off the next one will be better, but this is a pretty big disappointment.
Personal Rating: 2.50
Legacy Rating: 3.0
Final Rating: 2.75