Friday 7 July 2017

Baker Gurvitz Army - Elysian Encounter (1975)


The second album from this British band.

The band had expanded to a quintet with a lineup of guitars, bass, drums, keyboards and vocals.

Adrian Gurvitz, Paul Gurvitz and Ginger Baker was still in the band. The band had added Peter Lemer on keyboards and Steve Parsons on vocals to give the band a bigger sound.

A wise move, in my opinion. The vocals are really good here and the music has expanded in all directions.

The music is still a mix of hard rock, prog rock, blues and folk rock. The band has even thrown in a halfway reggae song here. Not a bad song, I have to add. I am no fan of reggae. But the band has gotten away with it.

There is also a folk rock influenced ballad here. Not a bad one too.

The keyboards are fleshing out the songs with a rich, good organ sound. Adrian Gurvitz proves he was/still is a guitar god. One of the best guitarists of all time, in fact. Something he also proves with a lot of breathtaking solos and riffs. Ginger Baker's drums are excellent as usual.

The band even managed to write and record some good songs on this forty minutes long album. An album who balances the hard rock with some rather more pastoral rock.

This is in short one of those British rock albums worth checking out. A tour de force of an album and an old charmer. Check out this good album.

3 points

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