Incredible String Band - Hard Rope Silken Twine (6 tracks) +Album Reviews

ISB Try Something Different and Do Not Please

B. Marold | Bethlehem, PA United States | 06/09/2005

(3 out of 5 stars)

"`Hard Rope and Silken Twine' is a very atypical album by The Incredible String Band on Island rather than their original home, Elektra and produced by Mike Heron rather than their long time handler, Joe Boyd. I just got finished reviewing a Donovan Leitch collection and commented that he often changed his style to fit the times and his perceived audience. And, until I came to review this album, I thought how constant and true to their basic style Heron and Williamson has been. That is, up until this album.

There are six tracks on this album on which they seem to be aping styles from Procol Harum to Yes to the Blues Brothers take on country and western music.

On top of that, the sound quality on some cuts is very uneven. Either some cuts were recorded in the studio and some were recorded live, or they were recorded at two or more different live venues.

My primary interest in this review is to warn you off if you really like albums such as `The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter' or `The Big Huge Wee Tam'. I temper that warning with the observation that if you also happen, like me, to really like Procol Harum, then you may want to take a chance with this one. Only two out of the six tracks are by Williamson, so if it is Robin's peculiar way with lyrics which entrances you about The Incredible String Band, then I suggest you look to some of their earlier albums or Williamson's solo efforts (but be choosy here, the quality is uneven. My best recommendation would be the album he did together with John Renbourn).

On the other hand, the cover art is delightful.

"

The ISB go prog

The Soft Machine Operator | COVENTRY, WARWICKSHIRE United Kingdom | 08/02/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"A bit of a messy album - two nice ballads (One from Heron, one from LeMaistre), two muggy sounding live songs, a wonderful Williamson song & a prog rock epic.The ballads are both nice. Williamson's "Dreams of No return" features the sitar and sounds like something circa "Liquid Acrobat."Someone once said that the ISBs songs go from A to B to C through to Z, rather than following a typical song structure. This is evident on Ithkos, a 20 minute long Epic that begins with twanging Greek sounding instruments, rolls around in acoustic mode for a bit, zips through a bit of heavy Wishbone Ash rock, dips into some orchestral bits, then ends with a Synth workout. Never boring. I can see why some fans dislike this album, but I loved it, even if they were recycling themselves a bit."

"Rockin'" Incredibles

S. GODFREY | Risca, South Wales | 04/18/2000

(3 out of 5 stars)

"The last ISB album, and while it has its moments of genius they are much more thinly scattered than on earlier records and the whole thing is a little cumbersome....from a band who wove such filigree masterpieces as "Hangman's" and "Wee Tam" this was really quite sad. Most of the music here actully worked a whole lot better in a live setting: the epic "Ithkos" was a total blast on their final tour. Perhaps though, considering the prog-rock excesses that were going on at the time, it was just as well ISB decided to throw in the towel after this album. Still worth getting to complete the collection and for "Dreams of no Return" (a major return to form from Robin), but a long way from their best. Nice cover art."

ISB Bid Us Goodnight

S. GODFREY | 02/18/2000

(3 out of 5 stars)

"ISB's final album, and it didn't come a day too soon: "Hard Rope" is the sound of a band who've carried longer than they should have. Problem is too much of this album is like going over old ground. Thus Mike Heron's reasonably affecting "Maker of Islands" is merely the latest in a series of sensitive piano-based ballads stretching back to "Light In Time of Darkness" on "U". Mind you, it's a work of genius in comparison with "Dumb Kate", a particularly tired variation on the cajun knees-up Heron first premiered with "Log Cabin Home In the Sky" way back in the 1960's (to coin a phrase) and political correctness-wise a bit suspect too. Mike could still write great songs at this time, the transplendent "1968" from a contemporary John Peel Show radio session proves that.Even the best song on the album, Robin Williamson's "Cold Days of February" - a brave song about Northern Ireland when nobody else was writing songs about the subject - is a musical echo of his earlier "The Circle Is Unbroken". Still a great song though, pity that the version on the album is a muddy live recording. Williamson's other song (what, just two Robin Williamson songs on an ISB album!), "Dreams of No Return" is good too, a refinement of those melancholy jazz-tinged ballads of his that had cropped up on the previous two albums - nice to hear Mike Heron's sitar being taken out of mothballs too.As for Malcolm Le Maistre, well he has just one song on the album, the drippy "Glancing Love", probably the worst song of his (brief) songwriting career: co-written with fellow Scientologist, Mike Garson of "Aladdin Sane" fame.Half of the album is taken up with Mike Heron's Ancient Greek saga (no, that's Norse isn't it?) "Ithkos". Lyrically this is pretentious in a way that old ISB never were, even when they were being pretentious (if you catch my drift). Musically .... well it's ambitious I'll give it that. I suppose I should be pleased to see Heron return to the suite-like extended form of "A Very Cellular Song" and "White Bird" and the like after the AOR sellouts of the previous album but somehow it's not entirely convincing. Oh sure, it has some lovely moments (mostly when Mike sings) and Robin plays a mean Mahavishnu Orchestra-like electric violin at one point (honest!) but it also has Malcolm trying to come over all Mick Jagger and some rather unconvincing "rocking out" before the whole thing dribbles out in a rather unpleasant prog rock flourish.All in all, not the ISB LP to put at the top of your shopping list, rather somewhere near the bottom."

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	Incredible String Band Hard Rope & Silken Twine Genres: Folk, International Music, Pop, Rock Track Listings (6) - Disc #1 Maker of Islands Cold February Glancing Love Dreams of No Return Dumb Kate Ithkos
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