Pilgrimage - Wishbone Ash > Reviews > The Difficult Second Album

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Average
Lyrics	Mediocre
Quality and consistency of tracks	Mixed
How does it compare to the artist's other releases	Good
Value for Money	Satisfactory

Advantages:	excellent guitar playing
Disadvantages:	inconsistent material

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Wishbone's sophamore effort from 1971 suffers by comparison with both its predecessor, their excellent, energetic debut album, and its successor, the career defining "Argus" which is one of THE classic British Rock albums of the 70s.
It's a good album of course, but after an excellent start it sags in the middle, and the closing live track smacks of a band short of material and desperately trying to find forty minutes worth of material to meet a deadline.
The first three tracks are classic Ash. "Vas Dis" opens proceedings with a duel between the lead guitars of Andy Powell and Ted Turner and bassist Martin Turner's scat vocals. It's an exhilarating start and paves the way for the outstanding (almost) title track. "The Pilgrim" wafts in gently, slightly reminiscent of Jimmy Page's "Black Mountainside" before evolving into a head-shaking guitar thrash. Epic stuff!
"Jailbait", despite the slightly suspect lyrics--never an Ash strongpoint--gets by because of those trademark unison guitar leads and jaunty rhythm.
Unfortunately from this point the album starts to roll downhill as if the band had run out of puff. "Alone", "Lullaby" and "Valediction" are all pretty but slight and by the time they slip in some cod-Reggae rhythms at the end of the latter you could be forgiven for nodding off.
The intended 'big climax' is also a bit of a let-down. "Where Were You Tomorrow" (recorded live at a Leicester gig) was probably fun on the night but I for one can do without the seemingly endless audience clapalong section, while the musicians appear to be doing little apart from mucking about. Wishbone always sounded a bit stiff when they tried to do the 12-bar boogie thing anyway. You had to be there I guess.
The CD re-issue adds a live version of Jailbait that adds little to the package. It's a shame they couldn't have dug out a few studio out-takes or alternative versions instead.
All in all, the verdict is "could do better", and with their next effort they certainly did.