Procol Harum Live With The Edmonton Symphony Orchestra (live album) by Procol Harum

From Crumpet 04/06/2018 16:10

Perhaps the best love album of all time, this record is amazingly orchestrated and performed by all involved. Side A of this album features 4 classic songs from the first four albums (minus Shine On Brightly, which is represented on side B). The first song is the one that benefits most from the orchestral upgrade, ‘Conquistador’, a brilliant rock song turned into one of the groups best ever tracks by amazing arrangement. Track 2 ‘Whaling Stories’ is another track that is improved by the arrangement, it almost sounds like it was written with an orchestra in mind.

The first two tracks are great songs turned brilliant by the orchestra, but the next track, ‘A Salty Dog’, was already performed with an orchestra on the album it came from, so this rendition isn’t much different, but Brooker’s vocals here make it a bit stronger than the album track. The final song on side A is perhaps the albums biggest misstep, ‘All This and More’, a song that I like more than any of the others chosen for side A of the album, but also a song that didn’t need an orchestral backing, so it’s place on this album is questionable. Of course the song is still good, but it isn’t really improved much if at all.

Side B consists of only one track, the prog rock epic, ‘In Held Twas In I’, my favourite Procol Harum song. The song was, in it’s origional form, 17 minutes long, whilst this rendition is nearly 20 minutes and is still a joy to listen to. The song is fantastic, of course, and is just as good here as it origionally was, the albums best.

Overall, this is one of Procol Haurm’s best, and one of, if not the very best non-studio album of all time.

From discojets1 03/30/2017 23:04

Very Underrated. One of the best live albums ever.