Alternately hard-edged and erotic, 1971’s “Broken Barricades” may have provided a striking contrast to “Home” that preceded it, but PROCOL HARUM saw no logic in following their own templates, and without this sybaritic album there wouldn’t be “Grand Hotel” and other orchestral escapades the band embarked on at the time. Although some fans still find it strange, the record’s charm and significance is impossible to overestimate, so its new emergence in the Esoteric’s reissue programme on May 31st will be more than welcome. Given remastered sound and extra tracks which mostly didn’t see the light of day before, it’s also expanded with two concert documents – the NYC one being one of the last to feature Robin Trower in his first tenure in the ensemble – and a Beeb session to make the re-release definitive.
Just like the relatively recent reissue of “Exotic Birds And Fruit” – and executed in the same lavish style – “Broken Barricades” has additional material bundled with the album, with live tapes taking separate discs.
Broken Barricades
CD 1:
1. Simple Sister
2. Broken Barricades
3. Memorial Drive
4. Luskus Delph
5. Power Failure
6. Song For A Dreamer
7. Playmate Of The Mouth
8. Poor Mohammed
bonus tracks:
9. Simple Sister (raw track)
10. Broken Barricades (long fade – raw track)
11. Memorial Drive (alt. mix – previously unreleased)
12. Memorial Jam (previously unreleased)
13. Luscious Delph (early version – previously unreleased)
14. Power Failure (alt. version – previously unreleased)
15. Song For A Dreamer (King Jimi) (backing track)
16. Playmate Of The Mouth (The Boyard’s Ball) (raw track – previously unreleased)
17. Poor Mohammed (backing track)
CD 2 –
Live – WPLJ FM – New York City – April 12th, 1971:
1. Memorial Drive
2. Still There’ll Be More
3. Nothing That I Didn’t Know
4. Simple Sister
5. Luskus Delph
6. Shine On Brightly
7. Whaling Stories
8. Broken Barricades
9. Juicy John Pink
10. A Salty Dog
11. Whisky Train
12. Power Failure
BBC Radio One “Sounds Of The 70s” – October 6th, 1971:
13. Simple Sister
14. Quite Rightly So
15. Broken Barricades
16. Power Failure
CD 3 –
Live – Swedish Radio – Folkets Hus, Stockholm October 16th,1971:
1. In The Wee Small Hours Of Sixpence
2. Still There’ll Be More
3. All This And More
4. Quite Rightly So
5. Power Failure
6. Pilgrim’s Progress
7. Simple Sister
8. Magdalene (My Regal Zonophone)
9. A Salty Dog
10. Repent Walpurgis
11. In The Autumn Of My Madness / Look To Your Soul / Grand Finale
