Disco de Procol Harum: “Shine on Brightly [Japan]”

1968's "Shine On Brightly" is Procol Harum's second album, and it's another classic Bach-meets-rock hybrid from Gary Brooker & company. "Quite Rightly So" and the title track are both Harum classics. "Skip Softly (My Moonbeams)" has a great ominous bounce to it. The gospel-esque "Wish Me Well" is another buried treasure from the band, as are "Rambling On" and "Magdelene (My Regal Zonophone)". Finally, Harum deliver the first of their two epic pieces in their catalog, the 17-minute "In Held Twas In I," a classical-rock suite containing 5 or 6 different movements, plus a couple of spoken word passages (Harum's other lenghty piece is the conceptual "The Worm & The Tree" from 1977's "Something Magic," but that's another review). "In Held Twas In I" is not for everybody---some fans say the various movements don't flow together too well---but I think it's a very adventurous piece, filled with lots of great moods & melodies. And, as one of rock's very first epic compositions, it's also quite groundbreaking. From start to finish, "Shine On Brightly" is another great milestone for Procol Harum.

Salvo terribly messed up the speed of the first two full album releases by Procol Harum.

I hope they eventually offer a recall program and get the albums corrected.

In the meantime, I can't in good faith recommend the first two Salvo remasters. Look to the Westside releases instead.

Procol Harum's second album found lyricist Keith Reid developing a song cycle around a specific theme, in this case insanity. Reid and Procol Harum would continue this pattern of themed albums through their next series of recorings.

Shine on Brightly begins quite well with the classic title track and "Quite Rightly So" before stumbling just a bit on the rest of the old side one. "Wish Me Well" sounds like they were attampting to ape the American west-coast sound of the time, but Moby Grape or the Dead they were not meant to be. "Rambling On" (NOT the Led Zep song!) features some excellent distorted guitar lines from Robin Trower that sound kind of like something Phil Manzanera would do years later.

Things pick up again on "Magdalene" before the band gets to the mammoth "In Held Twas In I" which is to my knowledge the first-ever sidelong symphonic prog epic. Things start out a bit rough with some sub-Moody Blues poetry but once it finally gets going during the "In The Autumn of My Madness" section, sung by Matthew Fisher, it turns into a real treat. Robin Trower's heavy guitar lines star on "Look to Your Soul" along with Gary Brookers soulful singing before the powerful "Grand Finale" wraps things up in style. It may take a while to get going, and little if any attempt was made to tie the segments together musically, but this piece provided the blueprint for every "Suppers Ready" and "Close to the Edge" that followed, while still being an entertaining piece of art in it's own right.

The four stars is completely subjective to the high quality of this band's work. Shine On Brightly is excellent and entertaining, and a five star CD by anyone else, but I have to reserve five stars for the next two albums, "A Salty Dog" and "Home" which found the band matching the song cycle themes with more cohesive music and produced a couple of classic masterpieces.

The early Association ("Along Comes Mary" and "Pandora's Golden Heebie Jeebies") and the Left Banke ("Walk Away Renee", "Pretty Ballerina) started the baroque-rock ball rolling. Procol Harum picked it up and ran hard with it for their first two albums. This, their second, followed close on the heels of the Beatles' 'Sgt. Pepper' and was both influenced by it, and carried parts of its ideation to greater heights/depths.

The first song, the up-tempo "Quite Rightly So" combines baroque compositional rigor with stellar organ solos to rival even "A Whiter Shade of Pale". Its lyrics eschewed the earlier song's surrealism in favor of a more soul-searching text, on a smaller, less mystical scale than George Harrison's "Within You Without You" from 'Pepper'.

The title cut, "Shine On Brightly", follows with a serious return to the surreal, the lyrics upping the intensity via meandering metaphors winding around the listener like the coils of a brazen serpent. There is pathetic humor and/or irony in the psychological allegory that unfolds here. Glorious organ solos continue, intensified by Robin Trower's searing guitar licks, which inject purgatorial eloquence and strident power.

With "Skip Softly My Moonbeams", music and lyrics become more hellish - carrying us over the brink into serious spiritual/psychological crisis. Sounds of a brutish and clownish nature enhance a sense of desperation not heard since "A Christmas Camel" on the first album. There only the lyrics told the complete story - the music was impassioned, but not so expressionistic like here - with 'percussively' sinister licks from Trower's guitar, Fisher's organ, and even the backup singer(s).

On "Wish Me Well", the bottom falls out - we enter the underworld. The music becomes a kind of psychedelicized blues-rock.

The mood lightens with "Rambling On", though its humor remains self-effacing. The singer ruminates on the state of being trapped between worlds - it's like being lost inside a bad tarot reading (or dreaming of it). The combination of a slow vaudevillian sound punctuated by the churchy organ solo is hardened by the rock underpinnings of drums and guitars. The clown's ready to be hung out to dry.

"Magdalene, My Regal Zonophone" - a glimmer of light, or hope, or warmth in the heart - which turns out to be calm before the storm. A gorgeously moving piano accompaniment [in waltz time with warm bass guitar tones and snare drum] plays underneath, recapitulating hopes expressed by the opening song; but added to this new openness is apprehension. As the song winds down and fades toward oblivion, in the distance someone comically/pathetically intones through a megaphone "Magdalene, my regal zonophone" a number of times, in rhythm with the band.

"In Held Twas I" Spoken soliloquy to ominous simulations of Tibetan chanting, rollicking circus music, huge choral textures, tender piano nocturnes, and powerfully endowed guitar solos all play their respective roles in this sublimely conceived conjuration. The whole builds its immense architecture in word and sound, mood and motive, sometimes in quiet serenity, other times as if thunderously through the eye of the hurricane - all these motifs work together to symbolize the possibility of spiritual rebirth and redemption obtained through eclectic rather than narrow, dogmatic means.

Don't miss this! It's one of the most amazing spiritual documents in any media from the late 60's.

This work bridges the gap between Procol's classic first album and their masterpiece 'A Salty Dog.' Evident is the humor and audaciousness of the former and the beauty and virtuosity of the latter. R&B meets classical in an often grandiose, sometimes disarming, but always engaging album.