Garfield was the brainchild of the composer Garfield French, a Canadian idealist. He formed Garfield. They did a warm up gig for 10CC in 1976 and their record label signed Garfield. The result was this album the same year. Three more albums followed. This album and the follow up Out There Tonight was released on a 2 albums on 1 CD some years ago. I bought it last year on a local flee market.
Strange Streets is stylewise somewhere between pomp rock and prog rock. A bit difficult to pinpoint in other words. But Supertramp and Magnum is in that area too.
Garfield French's high pitched vocals is an aqcuired taste though and difficult to ignore. Hidden behind his vocals, you get plenty of tangents, guitars, bass, drums and sporadic flutes.
This album also spawned a hit single in the form of the banal country pomp rock pastisj Old Time Movies. This is by no means a good song though and it leaves me rather embarrassed. The rest of the material is pretty dull and I am starting to wonder why the band was so highly rated. The final track Eyes, an eight minutes long epic, then appear and my ears get a nice fill with flutes, good vocals and angelic instrumentations. The song is a great song. More of this and this would had been a great album. But the other twenty-five minutes is only half-decent and dated. Hence my verdict. I believe all their songs are on Youtube so check them out yourself. In particular; Eyes.
2 points
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