Procol harum exotic birds and fruit free download

The following commentary discusses the whole Exotic Birds and Fruit album, song by song, adducing notes about the above broadcasts where applicable.

From the outset the band is playing as one, a full-tilt boogie. Gary recalls Elton John praising the single release 6 April ; later Jools Holland admired its rolling left-hand piano figure. Two beats later — in a feat of pure Procol telepathy — the rest of the band piles in together. Many will take his donnish unpacking of Pop Goes the Weasel for a similar flight of fancy. Reid wrote without considering trends or markets; even in their fifth decade his words rarely sound dated.

Starting from the imbalances and injustices that fed into the three-day working week crisis, the Samson lyric universalises the particular; Brooker finds a stirringly hymnal melody to convey its strongly-felt message. His pitching of the tricky chorus-end is something magic.

Here pitch and speed have dropped by different factors, shading the process, as well as the purpose, with uncertainty. Grabham is almost definitive. Or I could have tuned down, I suppose.

Despite the straightforward imagery of The Idol CD , its import remains enigmatic. Who is this tricky, irresolute monster? Who idolises him? Wednesday 29 September Thursday 30 September Friday 1 October Saturday 2 October Sunday 3 October Monday 4 October Tuesday 5 October Wednesday 6 October Thursday 7 October Friday 8 October Saturday 9 October Sunday 10 October Monday 11 October Tuesday 12 October Wednesday 13 October Thursday 14 October Friday 15 October Saturday 16 October Sunday 17 October Monday 18 October Tuesday 19 October Wednesday 20 October Thursday 21 October Friday 22 October Saturday 23 October Sunday 24 October Monday 25 October Tuesday 26 October Wednesday 27 October Thursday 28 October Friday 29 October Saturday 30 October Sunday 31 October Monday 1 November Tuesday 2 November Wednesday 3 November Thursday 4 November Friday 5 November Saturday 6 November Sunday 7 November Monday 8 November Tuesday 9 November Wednesday 10 November Thursday 11 November Friday 12 November Saturday 13 November Sunday 14 November Monday 15 November Tuesday 16 November Wednesday 17 November Thursday 18 November Friday 19 November Saturday 20 November Sunday 21 November Monday 22 November Tuesday 23 November Wednesday 24 November Thursday 25 November Friday 26 November Saturday 27 November Sunday 28 November Monday 29 November Tuesday 30 November Wednesday 1 December Thursday 2 December Friday 3 December Saturday 4 December Sunday 5 December Monday 6 December Tuesday 7 December Wednesday 8 December Thursday 9 December Friday 10 December Saturday 11 December Sunday 12 December Copping's organ and BJ Cole's pedal steel guitar accentuate the sumptuous melody.

Elsewhere, a series of inferior rehashes of earlier work in the form of "The Idol", "Monsieur R Monde", and "Butterfly Boys" disgrace the grooves. Even "Thin Edge of the Wedge", arguably the most progressive song here, degenerates into a lifeless recitation in the chorus. This album is stone cold for most of its duration, beyond burned out, and was their first US release not to chart; even if the successor stirred up fleeting interest, the Procol Harum saga was over by now.

Exotic maybe, but hardly fresh. This experience kicks off with the opening "Nothing but the Truth," which is built around a MARVELOUS set of piano riffs and has, thanks to healthy amounts of both strings and guitar, quite a nice texture, one that definitely reminds you you're listening to Procol Harum and yet doesn't sound at all like a retread of previous ideas. It also helps that there are a few VERY unpredictable melody twists in the middle, and the end result is a three-minute pop song with more ideas than most bands could hope to come with for thirty.

Similarly, the following "Beyond the Pale" has its own fascinating keyboard theme, with another great melody acting as counterpoint and vaguely adding to the tension near the end, until it too crashes down at about the three-minute mark and leaves me feeling much more satiated than the mere running time might suggest it could. After the "lightweight" opening duo, the album takes a slight turn for the more serious, but that's definitely not a complaint.

No, really, I'm serious here - the melody in the "ain't no use in preachers preaching when they don't know what they're teaching" part is one of the most perfect, shattering, totally cathartic hooks I've heard in my life, and that it gets repeated in different variations during the coda only makes me that much happier.

As for its followup, "The Idol," it might not be able to quite live up to Samson, but it's still an absolutely wonderful, gorgeous anthem about false Gods being exposed for the frauds they are at least, that's what I'm guessing its about , not to mention that the guitar solo in the extended ending is absolutely superb. None of the other compositions are quite as unbeliveably brilliant as the opening quartet, but most of them have their good sides nonetheless.

I could live without "The Thin End of the Wedge," which tries to hard to be "menacing" without remembering to be "entertaining," but everything else is quite satisfactory. My favorites are the two straightup rock songs, both of which amply show that much of Procol's greatness in fusing rock and classical stems from the fact that they really knew how to do "normal" rock. Monde" actually comes from the debut album sessions it was a bonus track on Whiter Shade , and while I wasn't particularly wowed there, this version gives Grabham plenty of opportunities to get his ya-ya's out, while Brooker reminds us that piano can rock just as much as guitar if it really wants to.

Better still, though, is the ending "Drunk Again" not on the original album, but a B-side tacked onto the CD reissue , with a simple-but-GREAT crunchy riff that provides an ample foundation on which, just as on "Monde," both keyboards and guitars are given the opportunity to rock and roll and boogie along like nobody's business.

The other three tracks aren't particularly noteworthy, but definitely not bad either. Regardless, though, despite the fact that the album ends weaker than it began, I don't want to hold it against the album so much as to reduce it below 4 stars. And hey, I'd like to give kudos to the AMG on this one - I may not agree with giving this album the highest ranking of any PH album, as they did, but I can definitely see where they're coming from, and it's not very often that I find myself in any sort of philosophical agreement with the All-Music Guide.

The weakest man, be strong as Sampson, when you're being held to ransom. At least f Procol Harum is one of my favorite bands and their first three albums should be part of every serious prog-rock collection. However, by the s their albums became a rather or hit miss affair.

Most of them are good, some of them great such as 'Broken Barricades', 'Grand Hotel' and of cours I believe this could be Procol Harum's most underrated album.