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After an unlikely collaboration with the French avant-garde composer Pierre Henry (Ceremony) grounded them from achieving the commercial success that lay just within an arm's reach following their greatest album, the Jimmy Miller-kissed Spooky Two, Spooky Tooth's veins were opened, the chief departure being main songwriter Gary Wright, who left to pursue a solo career. The band was recast around lead vocalist Mike Harrison and released 1971's The Last Puff, an album of covers heading back towards Spooky Two territory, in an attempt to springboard Harrison as a solo artist. Despite being a decent album, the line-up would prove to be short-lived.
In 1973, Spooky Tooth reconvened once more, this time with both Harrison and Wright in the band and with future Foreigner guitarist Mick Jones as well. They would make the albums that veered the closest to the circumference of the 'Progressive' circle, even if it never really penetrating the border. The first of these albums, You Broke My Heart..., remains a huge sentimental favorite of mine. Definitely an album of its time, I'd guess safely that it probably won't appeal to most that are introduced to it for the first time nowadays. With its sludgy riffs, saturated-as-hell Hammond, and tempos never rising above moderate, criticisms such as George Starotsin's of the era-derivative sound and the band settling into "just another hairy hard rock band" aren't entirely unfair.
For me, though, this album shines because of the songs themselves, the impassioned vocal performances from Harrison and Wright, and the straightforwardly elegant execution and arranging from the band as a whole. Listening to Repertoire Record's long overdue CD issue of this solidifies in my mind that Mike Harrison was one of the truly great, unjustly forgotten vocalists of that classic British rock era. In my view, his low-end soulful rasp, in terms of its distinctiveness and frontman presence, was on equal footing with Daltrey or Plant. His vocal performance on the breathtaking "Holy Water," accompanied by piano, harmonium, and a backing of gospel singers, is among the most truly moving I've heard in all the classic 70s British rock repertoire. It's a crime that the song itself appears to have been recorded with such shoddiness, with noticeable distortion when the song hits its climax in the upper ranges. Harrison also lays down fierce leads in "Cotton Growing Man," "Self Seeking Man," and "Moriah" (love that snaky, electric piano riff). Gary Wright, though not overall as distinct as Harrison, turns in some great vocals in his own right and sings from the heart at every opportunity. I love his vocal re-entry on "Old As I Was Born," after an unfortunately tepid synth solo: an emphatic reassertment ("I can feel..."), dwindling downwards a bit ("...my spirit..."), then soaring upwards ("...climb..."), then a descent, balking against the rhythm on "...deep inside me...each...day."
The songs run from good to excellent. Besides "Holy Water," my favorite track is "This Time Around." Funny thing is that it's probably among the most conventional on the album, its main riff a quasi-self-plagiarism of a song called "The Wrong Time," written by Wright and featured on both The Last Puff and his solo album Extraction. But the song is quite powerful in its contrast between the darkness in the verses and Harrison's claustrophobic, muffled vocals (another poorly recorded moment, but effective in this context) about a dying man, and the light of the chorus with blue-sky harmonies belting out the song's nonetheless ominous theme about death waiting in the wings. Another excellent song is "Times Have Changed." For years, I disliked this ballad, not being able to get into its unusual, dissonant chord themes and somewhat distracting mid-song dissolve from upright piano to Fender Rhodes. But time and repeated listens have made this, in my view, a top moment of the album. Wright here turns in another poignant vocal performance, and I love the way the song finishes suspended and unresolved, as the flame of Wright's melisma extinguishes and the Rhodes hits its last chord.
While not quite the utter classic that Spooky Two was, this is still a hell of a record regardless. Though its audience will never be a big one, I am pleased to see You Broke My Heart... has endured and retained its share of loyalists when it pops up on discussion boards.
Mike Harrison, vocal, keyboards; Gary Wright, vocal, keyboards; Mick Jones, guitars; Chris Stewart, bass; Bryson Graham, drums
Tracklist:
1. Cotton Growing Man — 4:39
2. Old As I Was Born — 4:42
3. This Time Around — 4:09
4. Holy Water — 3:29
5. Wildfire — 4:07
6. Self Seeking Man — 3:48
7. Times Have Changed — 3:54
8. Moriah — 6:22
Bonus track
9. Nobody There At All (Alternate Mix) — 3:45
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