National Health – Of Queues And Cures (1978)

National Health's second album was exactly what the record buying public (apart from a few nerdy second year science students) absolutely weren't looking for.

I, of course, bought it on release, even though I had embraced punk and put my old prog records to the back of the box - I'd seen the band performing earlier in the year with this line up.

Many years later, I was able to pick the CD up online, for far less than I sold the vinyl, a win in my eyes.

For me, this is easily the high point of the band's short existence, and encapsulates the whimsy, musicianship and experimental nature of the 'Canterbury Sound'.

It's bookended by the two parts of keyboardist Dave Stewart's Bryden 2-Step (for Amphibians), the first part being a bright, summery opening to the album, with both Stewart showing his keyboard versatility, and guitarist Phil Miller contributing some crystal clear solos; the second part starting with a more sullen march, before reprising the earlier theme into the album's conclusion.

But in between, there's much to enjoy. There's a second Stewart composition, The Collapso (here on BBC's Old Grey Whistle Test), an enjoyable instrumental, and Miller's manic Dreams Wide Awake is a fine bash. But the highlight of the instrumental pieces is bassist John Greaves' Squarer For Maud (for me, the band's finest eleven minutes), displaying his Henry Cow roots, a long piece with a haunting start, a lively middle and a crazy conclusion of cello, clarinet and oboe augmenting the band. The other highlights are the two vocal pieces, both composed by drummer Pip Pyle. The first, Phlakhaton, is an 8 second piece of nonsense chant (which Pyle alleged, thanks to a sampling I haven't identified, earned him more money than any other piece of music he wrote), but the other, Binoculars, is a lively piece about the banality of Pyle's children's TV viewing habits, with some beautiful and joyful soloing in the meantime.

This is an album which features in all the Top 10s of Canterbury albums, but rarely gets the top spot (usually reserved for the bigger guns of Caravan, Soft Machine or Gong). I'd have this up there with any album produced by those fine artists. It kind of feels like a pinnacle for the band, and unsurprisingly, they split after this second album.

Link to album tracks

5* - if one Canterbury album comes to the desert island with me, it might be this.