Someone’s having a laugh here or maybe this album is some sort of rebellion against the retro influences so prevalent nowadays amongst bands as it appears to be a thorough pastiche of end of the sixties folk rock splattered with equally dated pyschedelic influences?
The lyrics are either an art house take on poetry or simple, hopefully drug addled, pretentiousness. It’s hard to make up my mind here as even Mr Naylor’s vocals are forced well into parody territory throughout bearing comparison with legendary singers such as William Shatner. I reckon a good marketing plan for this album would have been to release it on vinyl as a reissue of a private pressing by some obscure Italian band that no one actually remembers. Passing this album of as a period piece would allow Mr Naylor to get away with wallowing in self indulgence and yawn inducing songs like “Portrait Of A Woman” and the cringe inducting “Belle-Amie” would then acquire an artificial patina that would also ensure that no one would risk the grooves (and resale value) of their precious vinyl by actually playing them.
I’m trying to think of something positive to say so this album perhaps could also possibly be seen as some sort of perverse concept album or maybe it could be seen as an attempt for Mr Naylor to get so far up his own arse that he won’t need artificial devices to add the echoing reverb that sinks the album’s sound quality. Or maybe something went wrong with the disc mastering? There’s a lot of maybes here…