What the Papers Said....

MUSIC UNCOVERED (USA)

This is a wonderful gem, a quite gracious piece of music. Evoking fall and winter images of the sweeping English countryside, bits of mist, and hints of the supernatural: fairies, goblins and hobbits. More instrumental than vocal, the songs have a soft, pastoral beauty to them, even during the extensive little intricacies. The vocals are restrained and contribute well to the overall effect. Absolutely marvelous. HvD.

EXPOSE (US)

How long has it been since a British band had the guts to make an album like this? Too bloody long! Genesis threw in the towel after 1977 and only the rare one or two jewels since then have surfaced. A Winter Harvest is one of them, an album that is defined equally by what it (mercifully) omits. Where are the Hackett/Gilmour-derived wailing guitar histrionics? The dramatic frontman crucifying himself on the rock-and-roll altar? Not to be found here. Geoff Proudley's moody keyboard work: Rog Patterson's twelve-string nimbleness: and the from-the-witchwood vocals of Stuart Martin, all converge to create the classy, very English music on this CD. Linear notes on the title track read "As the living die through the cold hard season, their souls are gathered in a harvest of winter. With the Spring comes rebirth, the circle of life unbroken". That should go further to giving you a hint of what is in store than any explanation I can dream up. The timeless sound is dominated by keyboards in a full bodied set of arrangements, supporting a voice resembling The Moody Blues' Ray Thomas, with Pattersons twelve-string guitar work providing a counterbalance. At times this captures that magic of A Trick of the Tail, a magic whose essence is so understated as to struggle attracting adherents to the cause. I hope in the future they seek to integrate the guitar and keyboards into a more thorough blend. Until then, Albion awake from your neo-prog slumber, and rediscover an alternative means to exploring progressive music. Highly recommended A Winter Harvest most certainly is.

ANGRY (UK)

This album is so late that the band actually provide a ten-part excuse list in the vain hope of of deflecting the brickbats (I have never known a bunch of hippies that are quite so out to lunch as these three!). Still you have to applaud: it marks the return after a bloody long wait of Rog Patterson to the progressive scene. Hurrah! What's it all about then eh? A concept album! More specifically an album following the seasons' cycle of birth, decay, death and rebirth. While routed in the pastoral tradition of the English countryside, it is purely 'progressive' in excecution. In fact it bears many of the hallmarks of Rog Patterson's original inspiration: Anthony Phillips. Largely instrumental, there are four vocal songs, this combines a sense of humour about making music whilst being deadly serious with the music itself. It's amazing! The band take rotten old cliches and forms and breathe exquisite new life into them. The keyboard playing is atmospheric without being twee, the vocals tuneful and the musical progressions show real movement. It's such a pleasure to hear musicians playing together for the sheer hell of it and that's perhaps why the keyboard and guitar synthesis works so well.

BACKGROUND (Netherlands)

The name Coltsfoot will be familiar to anyone who's been in the progressive scene for some years. They have released some very enjoyable, mainly acoustic demos (From Within Stone Circles, Action at a Distance, In Retrospect and one track on the legendary Exposure compilation back in the eighties], which many prog collectors will have in their collection. Two of these old songs have found their way onto A Winter Harvest, the first album by Coltsfoot and one we have been waiting for, for quite some time (the booklet explains with typical British humour why it took so long). Musically, COLTSFOOT have not changed too much during the last ten years, but sometimes it seems they have become a little more symphonic (e.g. Fields of Elisium Green). The acoustic part is still the most dominant element in their delicate pastoral music, with folky and medieval touches. The musical abilities of trio Rog Patterson, Stuart Martin and Geoff Proudley are very high. Just listen to the aforementioned Fields of Elisium Green or the oldie-but-goldie In Retrospect. I like this CD very much. Recommended listening! - Carsten Busch.

SilHobbit (UK)

I think this album is a big steaming pile of brilliant music. Brilliant, definately. Calm, relaxing and soothing, yes. Challenging, undoubtably. Purple with pink spots, perhaps. Yes, this is great as a sort of background music, though it never quite sits in the background, always prodding at the (un)willing listener like an attentative child. The band, that's Rog Patterson, Geoff Proudley and Stuart Martin all perform well. The addition of Steve Wilson on a couple of tracks double the progability rating of this.