1. Waterloo Lily - 6:482. Nothing At All / It's Coming Soon / Nothing At All (Reprise) - 10:23
3. Songs & Signs - 3:40
4. Aristocracy - 3:03
5. The Love In Your Eye / To Catch Me A Brother / Subsultus / Debouchement / Tilbury Kecks - 12:32
6. The World Is Yours - 3:40
--
7. Pye's June Thing* - 2:58
8. Ferdinand* - 2:57
9. Looking Left, Looking Right / Pye's Loop* - 7:00
With Caravan's trademark laid-back wit, pop songcraft, and powerful jazz rock chops on full display, Waterloo Lily finds the band transitioning toward slightly more mainstream territory. Richard Sinclair's long, loping bass lines drive the proceedings, and the piano/organ/synth work of new keyboardist Steve Miller (no, not that Steve Miller) adds a bold yet tasteful dimension to the band. But it might be Pye Hastings' guitar work that is the most surprising. Relegated to the background on previous Caravan albums, here Pye grabs for a bigger piece of the, well, um, Pye.
This is most evident in the "Love In Your Eye" suite. It's a solid extended piece, if a little predictable - a soft ballad transitions to an uptempo version with brass accompaniment and an incredible Jimmy Hastings flute solo, then into a minor-key organ-led jam, then a reprise of the vocal piece, and finally an energetic rock jam to close the proceedings. In previous incarnations, organ would provide the lead melodic content in the instrumental, but Pye steps out and takes a competent guitar solo. Not as virtuostic as one might wish, but the solo has character, and even humor.
The real story of this album might be the shorter songs. "Waterloo Lily" is a fun, funky piece, classic Canterbury prog. "Songs & Signs" features charming call and response vocals between Pye and Richard in a bossa blues with a distinctly English flavor. Richard's bass guitar work on "Aristocracy" has to be heard to be believed, and the ending track "The World Is Yours" is quintessential Caravan - humble yet warm vocal lines, slightly off-kilter shambling instrumentation, and easygoing good humour.
If there is one downer, it's the other long piece, which is fully instrumental. And really the "It's Coming Soon" part is quite good, a bracing jazz workout with creative chording, shape, and melody. It should have been its own track, separated from "Nothing At All," which is essentially a mediocre improv jam. Rich's bass lines here are a little too loping, a little too whimsical for their own good - for me, the bass exhausts the possibilities in the chord progression about a minute and a half into the piece and is forced to recycle the riff over and over, which highlights the repetitive nature of the song itself. Even so, the character of the band is apparent - amiable and rambling, with flashes of brilliance.
Arbitrary rating: 4 out of 5 long, loping bass lines
