Barclay James Harvest - Octoberon [Japan Ed. 5 bonus tracks] (1976)

Year: 1 October 1976 (CD Apr 26, 2006)
Label: Universal Music (Japan), UICY-93045
Style: Pop Rock, Art Rock
Country: Oldham, England
Time: 74:15
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 410 Mb

For me this album is fantastic, a summa of Barclay James Harvest kind of music. It opens with a classic with an optimistic note from the pen of Les Holroyd titled "The World Goes On". This is the first use of the orchestra from Moonwater (1972). Other two Holroyd's' contributions are Believe In Me and Rock'n'Roll Star which is a beautiful live classic for the band, with an obvious reference to the Byrds "So You Wanna Be A Rock'n'Roll Star". It was also compared to the Eagles "One Of These Nights". John Lees' pieces are all very good, expecially the explosive Polk Street Rag, inspired by the porno film Deep Throat, starring Linda Lovelace (Polk Street is in San Francisco's red light district). The final song Suicide? is simply one of the best songs for John Lees. This beautiful ballad, in predominant acoustic guitar, ends with sounds effect of the death of the character of the songs, falling from the top of a building. The question, marked in the titled, underline the central point: did he jump or was he pushed?. Stuart "Wooly" Wolsteholme composition is the epic of ancient Egypt "Ra" wich demonstrates the high synphonic ideas of this great composer.
Octoberon (only n.19 in the U.K. charts) is a title that combine the fact that is the eight album for Barclay james Harvest and the shakespearen character Oberon.
I highly recommend this pearl to all the people who love melodic/synphonic/prog.
(progarchives.com/album.asp?id=3388) Review by Andrea Cortese. August 8, 2005
Ew, guys, no. Barclay James Harvest's Octoberon sees the band moving to counterbalance the soft rock influences that had crept into their sound by amping up the orchestral content of their music, but this is applied tastelessly and occasionally simply to provide filler. Too often the band are entirely overwhelmed and you're just left with the orchestra noodling away prettily but aimlessly, as though they are performing the into for a song which never quite starts. There's indications of rifts opening up within the band too, with the different songwriters' contributions not really coming together to form a cohesive aesthetic whole - Polk Street Rag, for instance, really doesn't fit the rest of the album, or the band's direction in general. Tasteless bilge.
(progarchives.com/album.asp?id=3388) Review by Warthur. June 25, 2013

01. The World Goes On (06:30)
02. May Day (07:58)
03. Ra (07:20)
04. Rock N' Roll Star (05:17)
05. Polk Street Rag (05:38)
06. Believe In Me (04:23)
07. Suicide? (07:59)
08. Rock N' Roll Star [Early Mix] (04:55)
09. Polk Street Rag [First Mix] (05:34)
10. Ra [First Mix] (07:24)
11. Rock N' Roll Star [Recorded at Marquee Studios] (03:19)
12. Suicide? [First Mix] (07:53)

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