The Hollies go Americana, again! On a boat!

Warren Zevon might be the original excitable boy, but sometimes I'm a bit of that, too. I have a very vague plan of what I want to post, but then I get excited about a new project or distracted or what have you, and the original plan fades into the background. Case in point: When I posted The Hollies' Romany back in January I announced that it was part one of a two-part project and had planned to post the follow-up, an alternate album that wraps up the Mikael Ricksford era of the band, a week or two after. I even mentioned that this will "show up soon". Whoops. It's now more than two months, so I guess time to be true to my word. Better late than never. 

As I said in my write-up for Romany, I consider that album to be the best Hollies album, because it is the most consistent in tone, and it has a number of really good songs and no bad ones. I also mentioned that one of the problems of the Hollies' other albums was their unfortunate tendency to always have a number of cheesy showbiz tunes on their albums. And the tail end of the short-lived Rickfors tenure didn't excape that, either, even if that era was mostly a well-kept secret. The Hollies did issue another record, Out On The Road, but for some reason, it was only ever released in Germany, making it an instant collector's item for Hollies fans beyond the rhine. And, as said, there were a couple of duffers on that one as well, nothing horrible, but still...

So, what is then The Last Wind? As you might have imagined, an attempt to make a better second Rickford-era album, one that can proudly stand beside Romany as a great double feature. Most of the hallmarks of that album, notably a slight Americana sound no doubt influenced by the presence of Rickfors, are also here, accentuated by the three outtakes/b-sides from Romany I added to replace the weaker Out On The Road numbers. 

There are more guitars than you might imagine, and they are spacier and - dare I say more psychedelic - than you would expect from this edition of The Hollies. There's some harmonica. And when the band wants, they can sound heavy, as on their more than credible cover of the Eagles' "Witchy Woman". Before being let go, Rickfors left on a high note, contributing three very good numbers to proceedings here, including the new title track "The Last Wind". The Tony Hicks/Kenny Lynch duo are no slouches either, contributing the very good new opener "Go Down, Slow Down" and "A Better Place" (which lands just on the right side of the cheese line), while Terry Sylvester contributes the bittersweet "Mr. Heartbreaker" and the slightly psychedelic "Pick Up The Pieces". Unlike Romany, The Last Wind is a real teamwork and authored by the group, with the only outside contributions being another Colin Horton-Jennings track and the Eagles number. 

So, hiss the main sails, seamen, time to go on board with the Hollies. I gurantee you won't feel shanghai'd, so let yourself travel with The Last Wind...