Description

2016 Record Store Day exclusive on purple vinyl with OBI-strip

Like all of the Bevis Frond’s early albums, Inner Marshland was recorded on a four-track Portastudio in Nick Saloman’s bedroom, so there’s a limit to how good this material can be made to sound. While one might reasonably expect this album to consist of leftovers from the sessions for Miasma, these 11 songs are largely more concise and direct than on the debut, with only the overlong backwards-tape ending of “Window Eye” succumbing to tedium. Even the seven-and-a-half-minute “Once More” never overstays its welcome, although the poetry segment (which sounds like Eric Idle reading Graeme Edge’s poetry from old Moody Blues albums) might have gone by the wayside. Of the bonus tracks, “The Great Mistake,” the wistful “Walking in the Lady’s Garden” (featuring a great extended solo on some kind of cheap electronic keyboard), and the hard-rocking “Slave” are actually better than much of the album proper. The poppy “Run at the Sun” and the droning, trippy “Parasynquiry” are lesser efforts, though the rollicking organ instrumental “Solid Vimto” has a sort of lightweight charm.

Track list:
1. Cries From The Inner Marshland
2. Termination Station Grey
3. Window Eye
4. Once More
5. Defoliation Part One
6. Reflections In A Tall Mirror
7. Hey Mr Undecided
8. I’ve Got Eyes In The Back Of My Head
9. Minsmere Sphagnum
10. Medieval Sienese Acid Blues
11. Defoliation Part Two