Sunday 17 December 2017

Strawbs - Bursting At The Seams (1973)


The fifth album from this British band.

Strawbs was a quintet with a lineup of banjo, guitars, mellotron, piano, organ, bass, drums and vocals.

The band lead by Dave Cousins, whose book about these times in Strawbs is a very good read, had established themselves with some fine albums.

The band had also moved away from their base in the folk rock scene. They moved into a much more pop and prog friendly landscape.

This forty minutes long album has some poppy folk rock songs. Yes, they are still pretty much a folk rock band. But their move to pop music is pretty obvious and cannot be ignored. Ditto for some pretty strong prog rock influences.

The album is very fine and cosy until the album hits this jarring and out of place compared to the rest of the album Part Of The Union. This is a primitive football terrace chants like song and a big hit for the band. It is so out of the tune with the rest of the album too. And it is a pretty bad song too.

That song leaves a pretty bad taste in my mouth as it is a jarring pause, halfway through this album. It is a toilet break in this album.

The rest of this album is not much impressive. But it is still a decent album and does not shame this band too much.

2 points

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