For many people, Scott Walker's appearance on Later with Jools Holland, singing Rosary, was a wow! moment, and I'm no exception. I knew of the Walker Brothers' 1960s hits, and was aware of Julian Cope's Godlike Genius Of compilation.
It was the Later performance which made me investigate, firstly Walker's later work before going back to the early stuff, now handily packaged in a five CD set of his 1967-70 albums, from which this comes.
Opening with the powerful Jacques Brel song Mathilde, the self-penned Montague Terrace follows at a slower pace, a strong ballad. Angelica slips by and the country and western tones of Tim Hardin's The Lady Came From Baltimore doesn't really tease my ears. But When Joanna Left Me is a sorrowful tale of lost love, the first half ending with the stirring and haunting My Death. The second half opens with The Big Hurt, another big ballad, then the second Walker composition Such A Small Love, a slower, more complex piece, with Walker's heartfelt delivery carrying the beauty of the song. The two show tunes which follow, are utterly disposable, and we draw to an end with Always Coming Back To You, perhaps the weakest of the three Walker compositions, but it reawakens this album before the climax of the epic Brel composition Amsterdam.
Clearly a break from his mainstream pop career, it's his own and Brel's compositions that stand out and provide the most interest in this album.
3* - too much filler to be a great album, but many great songs!
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