Gracious! — This Is…Gracious!! 1971 (UK, Art-Progressive Rock)

Gracious! — This Is…Gracious!! 1971 (UK, Art-Progressive Rock)

No sophomore jinx here: on their second album, Gracious truly hits its stride. The first half of the album is a four-part suite, "Super Nova." After its Floydian opening instrumental, the band launches into the bleak "Blood Red Sun"; with a dystopic narrative of environmental holocaust and its martial drumbeat, it's an ideal complement to King Crimson's "21st Century Schizoid Man."

Strange, then, that this should lead to "Say Goodbye to Love," an effectively weepy guitar ballad of lost romance and tear-jerking harmonies. It's on the second half of the album, though, that Gracious hits escape velocity. On "C.B.S." the band shifts effortlessly from a groovy clavinet jam to a bouncing barrelhouse piano in the verse. "Blue Skies and Alibis" is a prime example of Martin Kitcat's Mellotron technique; powered along by Cowderoy's graceful guitar, smoky vocals, and a lush piano progression worthy of Joe Jackson, it's one of their most enduring tracks.

A truly undervalued gem, This Is... Gracious! sat on the shelves for two years after completion before being issued; it's a shame that it was to be last anyone heard from the band for the next two decades.
by Paul Collins
After recording their first album, the band immediately began working on a new record, but the label's management, dissatisfied with the low sales of the first album, delayed the release of the new album. Live performances were also not going smoothly, and the band began to shuffle lineups, especially since the relationships between the musicians had always been far from ideal. A second album was eventually released, but by that time the band was no longer in existence. After Gracious!'s dissolution, its former members failed to find success in any well-known bands. Only Tim Wheatley was invited to join the then-unsuccessful Supertramp, but he declined, a decision he later regretted. In 1977, he founded his own studio, Chestnut, in Germany and played in little-known local bands there. The rest of his bandmates chose careers as sound technicians or music managers.

Tracks:

Super Nova - including (01-04):

01. Arrival Of The Traveler - 0:00

02. Blood Red Sun - 4:05

03. Say Goodbye To Love - 10:41

04. Prepared To Meet Thy Maker - 14:08

05. C.B.S. — 21:39

06. What's Come To Be - 28:46

07. Blue Skies And Alibis - 32:19

08. Hold Me Down - 37:17


Personnel:

Paul "Sandy" Davis - lead vocals, percussion
Alan Cowderoy – guitar, backing vocals, percussion
Martin Kitcat — Mellotron, keyboards, backing vocals, percussion
Tim Wheatley – bass, backing vocals, percussion
Robert Lipson - drums, percussion
+
Hugh Murphy - producer


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