Procol Harem-Broken Barricades

Original

Their fifth album and the last with guitarist Robin Trower. This 1971 album is another one of my very earliest purchases bought around trhat time with my paper route money. It has the die cut cover with cutouts for the faces of the band members. “Simple Sister” and “Broken Barricades” were songs I heard played on WMMR and WMPH,my High School radio station, back then. “Simple Sister” starts with some Heavy Metal type licks from Trower then later a nice jam with Gary Brookers piano and Trower’s guitar,ending with some orchestration.”Broken Barricades” is a pretty little tune featuring vocalist Brokker’s piano again. “Memorial Drive” is a great Robin Trower song showing a glimpse of what his solo work would be like. “Luskus Delph” the last song on side one is one I never liked and never knew what the strange lyrics were about. “Power Failure” starts off side two with a little drum solo in the middle and is followed by Trower’s psychedelic tribute to Jimi Hendrix “Song For A Dreamer” Certainly would have been a stoner favorite back then but I was only 14 and didn’t start smoking that stuff until years later. On “Playmate Of The Mouth” Trower plays some Blues guitar and the album ends with “Poor Mohammed” another Trower song with him doing the singing. Lyrics for every Procol Harem song were written by their “fifth member” Keith Reid.Easily their best album. They put out a few more after Trower left and a reunion album in 1991 that I had on cassette but it was not very good.

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