Barclay James Harvest - Octoberon
Not quite prog enough for some, a little too symphonic for others, BJH divided opinion and became representative of Everything That Was Wrong according to punk rock. That shocked me at the time because I always loved them and especially both the live album and Octoberon
They always seemed really ambitious to me. The track ‘Ra’ here is such an example and Rock n Roll Star is more rock m toll appropriately enough. And "Suicide?" with its footsteps to the building's edge, really dramatic and poignant considering what the future held.
Glorious cover too. I bought it new, unusually so I must have heard it somewhere and really liked it. I think it was their highest charting album too and I saw them on this tour. If it had happened a couple of years earlier, they would have enjoyed a lot more success, as it was, being a melodic prog band in 1977 guaranteed mockery. The ‘poor man’s Moody Blues’ tag which followed them around was never justified and they continued into the late 80s, still popular in Germany, ploughing an unfashionable furrow
They’ve got a substantial catalogue of albums with 15 or 16 albums to 1990, though I don’t know their 80s output, the 11 70s albums are all good.
