Day of the Fox / In Flight

構成数 : 1枚
合計収録時間 : 00:00:00
For a band that never approached commercial success and didn't really fit in with either the mainstream pop or progressive rock trends of the early to mid-'70s, Design certainly got a lot of opportunities to record. This U.K. compilation puts their third and fourth albums (1973's Day of the Fox and 1974's In Flight) on one CD, with extensive liner notes by one of Design's singers, Barry Alexander. Day of the Fox might be their strongest LP, as its soft rock is not, well, as soft as their previous two efforts. It's still as difficult to comfortably categorize as their other records, however, flitting between and combining folk-rock, wimpy harmony pop, and bits and pieces of harder stuff without settling into a predictable format. At times it could almost (but not quite) pass as something you'd find on a compilation of obscure '70s British acid-folk, especially the title cut (the closest they come to U.K. trad folk-sounding material) and "Pisces Hymn," which has some honest-to-goodness distorted hard rock guitar. At other times, however, it sounds almost like Bread with female vocalists among the singers. Sometimes it seems like they're absorbing trends from some of the better AM rock of the period, with "Yellow Bird (Have You No Home)" echoing the melodies of songwriters like Cat Stevens. "You'd Better Believe It," co-written by Tom Paxton, has some genuine social consciousness, the tune recalling some unholy blend of "This Wheel's on Fire" and Crabby Appleton's early-'70s hit "Go Back" until a peppy chorus kicks in that seems like it's been transplanted from a commercial jingle. Definitive early-'70s rock slide guitar graces "When Morning Comes," and there's also an odd cover of "I Feel the Earth Move" with an almost tribal percussion-and-voice opening section. Though lacking anything that great or commercial, it's a (likely unintentionally) weird effort that will hold some appeal for adventurous collectors unconcerned with borders between genres. In Flight was the last album recorded by the six-person lineup heard on the majority of Design's releases. It isn't as interesting as its predecessor, but has the same, almost unsettling mix of styles, as though the band just couldn't decide whether to be fluffy or risky. "A Famous Myth" has the full, soaring male-female harmonies that spark interest in Design among sunshine pop fans; "Teach Me How to Fly" gets (very mildly) funky; "Archie Franks" is the kind of vaudevillian folk you might hear on A Prairie Home Companion (that's not a compliment), and the cover of Steely Dan's "Dirty Work" sounds sort of ludicrous. There's also some rather bland soft rock, but before you give up on the record, Design come out of left field with a lightly Latin-flavored soul-pop song that could have been written by Malo ("I'll Be Back Again") and, stranger yet, a round-like folk tune ("I Am the Greene Manne") that might have fit into the soundtrack of the cult film The Wicker Man. Like Design's other albums, it's frustrating but too quirky and sporadically worthwhile to write off, though precisely which parts you like or dislike will almost serve as a measure of what kind of styles you favor or abhor in general. ~ Richie Unterberger