Music Review: Procol Harum - Something Magic - Blogcritics Music

In 2007 the Salvo Records reissue label began releasing upgraded editions of all ten albums Procol Harum produced during their first ten years, concluding with Something Magic, from 1977, the band`s last work together until The Prodigal Stranger, in 1991. Like their renewal of the similarly underappreciated catalog by The Move, Salvo did a commendable restoration of Procol`s music, including a two disc best-of anthology, Secrets of the Hive, and a 4 disc box, All This and More.

With Something Magic, Salvo completes their fortieth anniversary Procol collection with admirable quality.

Too bad the medicine doesn`t measure up to the packaging. This album, the most divisive in Procol`s history, is the one Stereo Review`s Steve Simels memorably labeled, "Something tragic." The accompanying booklet calls for a "review" of the album as "an intriguing milestone rather than a millstone," and a lot of Procol`s caliber certainly deserved it.

Their premature release, Procol`s Ninth (1975), had yielded a UK chart single, "Pandora`s Box," which should have provided some momentum for a follow-up. Ninth`s producers, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, were unavailable, though, and the band wound up recording in Miami`s Criteria Studios, site of successful recordings by the Allman Brothers, Bee Gees, Eagles, Manassas, and Derek and the Dominos. Despite the invigorating change of scene, the quality of Criteria`s ace engineers, Ron and Howie Albert, to create the album was something far from magic.

The album credits list both the set and the Albert brothers as producers. As the new CD's booklet diplomatically puts it, the Albert brothers were "not tuned to [the same] wavelength" as Procol`s primary songwriters, Gary Brooker and Keith Reid. A 1995 Record Collector interview with Brooker reveals deeper incompatibility. Brooker contends that the band wanted the brothers to stick with technology only, to which they responded by likening Procol`s material, as graced with their production talent, to "dogsh*t covered in chocolate."

That appraisal, apocryphal or not, is both overly generous to the album`s sound and excessively scatological toward the material. Side One of the original LP, and this CDs first five tracks, are far from Procol`s top material, but are, at worst, uninspired. They also include rare songwriting credits for bassist Chris Copping and guitarist Mick Grabham, indicating a new openness to their contributions. The innovations also saw Copping give up his organ-playing role, replaced by Pete Solley, who eschewed the familiar Hammond sound for Farfisa organ and ARP synthesizers, a marked trade down.

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