Procol Harum – Shine On Brightly

While i prefer the more psychedelic piano original artwork to this image, theres no denying this is an excellent new pressing of this wonderful Procol album. To think they were labelled as just a good singles band! This album proves they can take a musical theme and concept and do it consistently for 40minutes. Pressing wise the Pallas Germany vinyl is their usual top notch work. Glossy, clean as a whistle, quiet as a church mouse. The mastering is fine, though this was never an audiophile recording. A very enjoyable reissue indeed. On par with the MOV pressing from a few years ago even if that had the better cover art!

The title track and "Quite Rightly So" are among Procol Harum's best songs, and segments of "In Held Twas I" are still amazing to hear and behold. "Skip Softly (My Moonbeams)" and "Magdalene (My Regal Zonophone)" are also standouts. This pressing is impressive, Brooker's piano and Fisher's organ mesh beautifully, and B.J. Wilson's drums are delightfully loud and clear. Good range from top to bottom, and a warm, immersive soundstage. My copy plays beautifully, even during the quiet passages of "In Held Twas I" I didn't notice any surface noise.

Great press. All aged A&M presses hold up like fine wine and clean up good. I'm hoping to have all of Procol's albums soon, or before I die at least. ;0)

VG++ copy is available! Hit me up and offer your price ;)

VG++ copy is available! Hit me up and offer your price ;)

Listened to an original 1968 Los Angeles, CA Monarch Pressing. Sonically its a mixed bag as others described but the last two tracks Wish Me Well and Rambling On on Side A blew my doors off. Rambling On sounds like a Bowie Ziggy album with Trower emulating(?) or developing(?) that classic Ronson Vibrato tone and Wish Me Well has that mid 70's Trower blues. I looked at the credits and there is good old Tony Visconti helping out on bass and production. Gotta make you wonder about his influence on Bowie's later sound since they first worked together in 1969-70. Not much of a Harem fan so have put on my flak jacket for incoming. Curious if anyone else hear's this.

Bss Sounds flat a bit got to crank the amp. But sounds bright and vocals has strong presence..thick vinyl and quality cover. Stereo.seperation is really sharp.

This could use a serious vinyl reissue. The recording sounds muddy on a lot of the tracks on the pressing I have and doesn't seem to be mixed very well, imho. Mr. Wilson, if you're listening and have some free time....;0)

This is such an underappreciated album - the songs and performances are great. Overall though, I'd say the recording quality and mixing across the album are bit uneven. Some tracks sound great, others can be quite muddy. There also seems to be vocal sibilance on the master tape since I'm hearing it not only on this press, but also on a mid-1990's CD and the recently remastered digital tracks on Tidal. The album's opening track, "Quite So Rightly," might be the worst sounding track on the album. It's incredibly muddy, instruments sound stacked on each other and there's vocal sibilance throughout. Things significantly improve from there though and instrument separation and soundstage seem to improve as each track progresses.

I really wish this album was recorded and mixed better, because it's a gem of an album. This press in particular sounds pretty good (it's a bit light in the bottom end), however I'm not sure how much can be improved when the master source just isn't that great.

Sounds really good regardless of the CSG process for stereo mono listening even sounds good on headphones!