Artist: BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST
Album: XII RE-MASTERED (CD)

Year: 1978/ 2003
Media type: CD

“XII” flows well from start to finish, and includes some of BJH’s best music. In some ways the diversity of the tracks takes us right back to their first album, but whereas that album reflected a band still seeking their direction, here it demonstrates the maturity and confidence at their creative peak.

“Science fiction, Nova Lepidoptera” is a majestic piece with a stately pace, reminiscent of their Harvest label days and of Woolly Wolstenhome’s magnificent, but all too infrequent compositions for the band.

In all, there are eleven quality tracks here, other highlights being: “Fantasy, Loving is easy”, a solid upbeat opener, and “Classics, A tale of two cities”, a successor of sorts to “Titles” on “Time Honoured Ghosts. “In Search of England” is instantly recognisable as another high quality Woolly Wolstenholme contribution, and “Fiction, The streets of San Francisco”, is a cross between “Suicide” (“Octoberon”) and “one night” (“Time honoured ghosts”).

This was to be BJH’s last great album, with the following “Eyes of the universe” showing the first clear signs that their momentum was starting to dwindle. The remastered CD brings out the true quality of the music, which was slightly suppressed on the LP due to the audio constraints which come with fitting such a long album onto a single disc. (“Selling England by the pound” suffered a similar problem)

TRACKLIST:

1. Fantasy: Loving Is Easy (4:00)
2. Berlin (4:47)
3. Classics: A Tale Of Two Sixties (3:34)
4. Turning In Circles (3:30)
5. Fact: The Closed Shop (3:46)
6. In Search Of England (4:12)
7. Sip Of Wine (4:22)
8. Harbour (3:42)
9. Science Fiction: Nova Lepidoptera (5:45)
10. Giving It Up (4:35)
11. Fiction: The Streets Of San Francisco (5:41)

Total Time: 47:54

Bonus tracks on Polydor remaster (2003):

12. Berlin (single edit)
13. Loving Is Easy (single version)
14. Turning In Circles (alternative mix)
15. The Closed Shop (alternative mix)
16. Nova Lepidoptera (instrumental mix)

LINE-UP:

- Les Holroyd / vocals, basses, banjo, piano, acoustic guitar
- John Lees / vocals, guitars, bass
- Mel Pritchard / drums, percussion
- Woolly Wolstenholme / vocals, keyboards, Mellotron, guitars