Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A disappointment, 31 Aug 2009
I am a huge fan of this band and have seen the electric and acoustic bands live several times. I have everything they've ever released on CD and DVD and the songwriting of Dave Cousins ranks amongst my favourite music of all time.
Last year, the classic 'Hero & Heroine' line-up of the band returned with 'The Broken Hearted Bride' - an incredibly strong album packed full of powerful songwriting and performances, all supported by production of the highest standard. Its evidence of a band really on form and loving every minute of it and I rank it as one of their finest albums.
Consequently, anticipation of this new 2009 album, released to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the band, was very high.
Unfortunately, after listening several times, I have been left completely underwhelmed. The production is appalling, which doesn't help, but far more disappointing is the fact that the songwriting seems to be bereft of any interesting new ideas. The whole album has a very flat feeling to it, and quite frankly the contributions made by Oliver Wakeman only go to show what a great keyboard player John Hawken was. This feels like a Strawbs pastiche - a shadow of the band I love.
Some have suggested that its more the sort of album the Strawbs might have made after 'From The Witchwood' but I have to disagree. It is nothing like that classic. 'Dancing to the Devil's Beat' is neither a folk album, a folk-rock album, or a rock album. Its just echoes of aspects of the Strawbs with no real substance of any consequence. '...Witchwood' is an incredible piece of work, with brilliant contributions from Rick Wakeman and consistently great songwriting from start to finish. 'Dancing...' is the opposite of this, and Oliver Wakeman isn't a patch on his Dad.
The Strawbs are a fantastic band with an output of consistently excellent albums full of great songwriting, singing, and playing. This isn't one of them.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
...a celebration of Strawbs, past and present..., 18 Aug 2009
2009 sees the 40th-ish anniversary of the Strawbs. I say "ish" because it's actually the 40th anniversary of their first record which isn't really the same thing, as they actually began life five years earlier as a bluegrass band called the Strawberry Hill Boys. In fact, to be scrupulously accurate, their first record came out in June 1968, with their first album coming out in 1969. Whatever... this year sees a couple of special live shows lined up which will see five different lineups of the band performing the music of yore. So what better time for the band to put out a brand new studio album?
Their bluegrass period didn't last once main man Dave Cousins started writing, and they quickly became mainstays of the UK folk-rock scene. However, once Rick Wakeman arrived on keyboards, alongside a new rhythm section consisting of Richard Hudson and John Ford, they added a progressive rock edge to their sound on albums like the live "Just A Collection Of Antiques And Curios" and the studio sets, "From The Witchwood" and "Grave New World". The prog edge largely vanished once Dave Lambert arrived, something that coincided with the pop success of singles 'Lay Down' and 'Part Of The Union' and album "Bursting At The Seams".
After their most successful lineup imploded, Cousins and Lambert put together a new Strawbs, which concentrated its attentions on the USA, and it's the nucleus of this version that is back together in 2009. The band went on hiatus in 1980 when Cousins departed for a career in radio, but there have been a few reunions over the years including headlining the 1983 Cambridge Folk Festival with the "Grave New World" lineup, a twenty fifth anniversary tour in 1993 and a thirtieth anniversary celebration. Since then, they've popped up fairly regularly leading up to this arithmetically challenged 40th anniversary.
"Dancing To The Devil's Beat" sees Dave Cousins, Dave Lambert, Chas Cronk and Rod Coombes back together with new boy Oliver (son of Rick) Wakeman, and it's all rather good. After a slow start in the shape of 'Beneath The Angry Sky', the most ineffectual song on the album, which tries to build up slowly, but just goes nowhere, the Strawbs settle into a groove reflecting their way of doing things circa 1974. A lot of thought and effort seems to have gone into making the lyrics in particular, very much a part of now, with even the World War I-based 'Pro Patria Suite', capable of being a parable of the modern day. It's a marvellous, albeit bleak, suite, beautifully arranged with banjo and pipe organ up front and centre. The anti-war (although never anti-soldier) theme continues on into 'Where Silent Shadows Fall', which is driven along by a military snare drum backing and closes evocatively with an instrumental coda led by the sound of a cornet.
Elsewhere, greedy politicians are the targets of the title track, and the album closes with an excellent reworking of their very first single 'Oh How She Changed'. The production is a bit 1980s in places, especially with some rather dated percussion sounds, but when then whip out a song as blissful as the acoustic 'Copenhagen', which harks back to their very early folk rock days, evoking a spirit of times gone but not forgotten. The band are all in fine form, with new boy Oliver Wakeman splashing some excellent piano and organ around, embellishing without overpowering the songs.
As a celebration of Strawbs, past and present, this is an utter delight.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
Sadly this particular devil doesn't have ALL the best tunes..., 9 Nov 2009
Behind the truly hideous cover artwork - surely one of the worst in recent memory - lies another good, if patchy, Strawbs album. Marking the band's 40th anniversary is all well and good, and it's a milestone well worth commemorating, but on reflection perhaps this release has come just a little too quickly on the heels of the epic "The Broken Hearted Bride".
On the plus side, "Pro Patria Suite" detailing both the horror and the aftermath of war, is a typically grand and emotional Dave Cousins affair, constantly shifting tempo and mood with a deft lightness of touch and it's far and away the best thing here. Also impressive, and on a similar theme, "Where Silent Shadows Fall" builds to a rousing Grace Darling-type of orchestral / choral play-out that leaves a familiar lump in the throat and a tear in the eye.
"Copenhagen", a paean to the late Sandy Denny, is a delicate acoustic piece harking back to the band's earliest folk origins, as is the remake of "Oh How She Changed" an ultimately pointless exercise which adds nothing to the classic original, the band's first single from 1968.
But amid all the familiarity, there are still surprises - witness "The Ballad of Jay and Rose Mary", a totally atypical Cousins composition with a vocal style borrowing much from Mark Knopfler, and quite unlike anything the band has done before. Against all the odds, it works.
Against that, Dave Lambert's "The Man Who Would Never Leave Grimsby" - a contender for oddest song title of the year - is one of his least engaging compositions, coming dangerously close to self-parody.
Whilst it's good to see The Strawbs still going strong and showing remarkably few signs of ageing after four decades, one can't help but feel that a little less haste in getting this out could have resulted in something to stand alongside their classic seventies output. It falls a litle short on that score, but it's still very good in parts.
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