Greenslade
Time And Tide

The 1975 has the Greenslade engaged in the production of their last album, after which they will disband, allowing leader Dave Greenslade to start his solo career, bearing its first fruits the following year with "Cactus Choir".

"Time and Tide" is a discontinuous work, where the inspiration of their initial works seems to have faded in favor of a much simpler and more immediate style. The compositions are all rather short and do not show the levels of complexity to which the band had accustomed us in the past. The progressive of the beginnings is here indeed contaminated by pop sounds, which make the album perhaps a bit too accessible, but do not deprive it of interesting elements and noteworthy tracks. One echo of the past that is immediately proposed again is the cover illustration, which returns to depict the symbolic four-armed character conceived by Roger Dean, this time, however, realized by Patrick Woodroffe (who will also take care of the graphic design of Dave Greenslade’s second work, the double "The Pentateuch of Cosmogony" of 1979).

The album begins and "Animal Farm" opens the dance decisively, developing by alternating slow parts with more agitated ones. Dave Lawson's voice presents itself in a rather aggressive key and is supported by the sustained rhythm of Andrew McCulloch's drums and Martin Briley's lively bass, which around halfway through the track chase the singer's keyboard in its solo escape. Martin in this album replaces the historical bassist Tony Reeves, who left the group after the release of "Spyglass Guest", and also takes care of the guitar parts that belonged to Dave Clempson, at least in some episodes of the previous album. The second track "Newsworth" is based on a rather catchy rhythm and doesn't leave much room for surprises of any kind. Greenslade and Lawson, who also sings in this piece, with their intertwined use of keyboards, relegate the other musicians to the role of extras for most of the song. After the first two decidedly catchy tracks, things start to get more interesting with the following three, linked together. "Time" is a composition written and performed by Greenslade, allowing only a male choir to accompany his harpsichord. The resulting medieval sounds seem to have more than one point in common with the coeval "The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table" by Rick Wakeman. At the end of this short intro, the atmosphere becomes darker, Greenslade switches to the mellotron and performs "Tide", another evocative instrumental passage that finally leads us to "Catalan", a lively and decidedly more complex composition than the previous ones, which once again highlights the keyboards, with the other instruments engaged in chasing them, creating disruptive instrumental fugues.

The second part of the album starts almost like the first, "The Flattery Stakes" is indeed a very rhythmic and immediately assimilable piece, where Lawson's rough voice once again leads the musicians in a flawless execution, though devoid of unexpected elements. The following "Waltz for a Fallen Idol" and "The Ass's Ears" are two songs united as if they were a single composition, so much that the first, in its regular structure, seems to be a long introduction, slow and soft, to the second, which shows a more fluctuating structure, with Andrew's drums prominently featured, where the soft instrumental parts alternate with the frenetic sung parts. The next "Doldrum", characterized by warm and introspective airs woven by the keyboards and Lawson's gentle singing, is a breath of fresh air in an atmosphere that leaves little room for creativity and the moods of the past. The bass and drums are absent, as the piece is entirely created by Dave and is one of the most successful on the album. The closure belongs to "Gangsters", which, although not possessing particularly evocative atmospheres, reveals itself as a varied instrumental piece, also used at the time as the soundtrack for a television series.

The album thus concludes, as does the path of the band, at least for a long period, until the release of "Large Afternoon" in 2000. After the refinements of the early works, the group here allows itself a less sophisticated style but one certainly not disdainful. The album indeed, if listened to without excessive pretense, flows smoothly and pleasantly from start to finish, perhaps without exceptional peaks, but also without abrupt falls.