01	Memory Lain, Hugh - Headloss			P. Hastings / P. Hastings			09:19
	02	Hoedown			P. Hastings			03:20
	03	Surprise, Surprise			P. Hastings			04:07
	04	C'Thlu Thlu			P. Hastings			06:15
	05	The Dog, The Dog, He's At It Again			P. Hastings			05:58
	06	Be All Right - Chance Of A Lifetime			P. Hastings/ P. Hastings			06:37
	07	L'Auberge Du Sanglier - A Hunting We Shall Go - Pengola - Backwards -A Hunting We Shall Go (Reprise)			P. Hastings / P. Hastings / Perry / Ratledge / P. Hastings			10:07

Caravan - "For Girls Who Grow Plump In the Night" (1973) In my ears, a much better album than "Waterloo Lily". Most of the el-piano and the jazz-influences were gone, and the band had added both synths and violin to their sound. Personally I think this worked very well. The album starts with the excellent "Memory Lain, Hugh Headloss". A energetic and very catchy track with an excellent horn-arrangement in the middle. "The Dog, The Dog, He's At It Again" is a good example of the more poppy side of Caravan's progressive rock sound. The last track on the album is the great instrumental "A-Hunting We Shall Go". The riffs and themes are great, and there's also some very tasteful synths and orchestration here. I've heard that a part of this track is based on some stuff from Soft Machine's third album, but I must admit that I can't hear what part this should be. Anyway, great track! And as on all other Caravan albums there are also some short and catchy tracks here, like "Hoedown" and "Surprise, Surprise". A great album, but you should still start with "In the Land of Grey and Pink" if you aren't familiar with Caravan yet.



FOR GIRLS WHO GROW PLUMP IN THE NIGHT
(released by: CARAVAN)

Year Of Release: 1973
Overall rating = 11

Bringing a nice homebrewed-rock scent into the medieval stylistics. Ring a bell?
Best song: C'THLU THLU

Caravan's fifth release is, I suppose, kinda better than could be supposed for a band with such a limited formula. And not just because of the title, or because it pictures a pregnant girl on the gatefold cover (not to mention that the girl in question was originally to be pictured naked, and only Decca's stark "no" sufficed to push back the conquered liberties). The album was recorded in the wake of severe personnel change - keyboardist Steve Miller was out, and so was Richard Sinclair, one of the band's founding fathers. And, although Miller was hastily replaced for a short stint by the returning Dave Sinclair, and a bunch of other guys was also picked out to give the band some "spatiousness", there's no question that For Girls is essentially a Pye Hastings show throughout - he writes all the tunes but a few parts of the closing epic.
More so, this is supposed to be one of Caravan's most guitar-heavy albums. Granted, the guitar was always audible on Caravan records, but in their verve to play that stern 'mild-Goth' sound, Caravan always relied extensively on keyboards; this is the first album where the keyboards are subdued by Hastings' guitarwork. No, no, I don't mean "guitar wanking" - it's not the solos here that impress you, it's the riffage and the rhythm playing. The solos are, in fact, the weakest spot, by the book guitar/organ/violin instrumental passages that lack any imagination whatsoever. To appreciate the album, one has to dig in Hastings' playful melodic rhythms and the cute "medieval pop" songwriting.
Most of the album feels very 'light', optimistic romantic ditties that are extremely easy-going and totally endearing. Stuff like 'Surprise Surprise', for instance, which almost serves as the blueprint for half of Camel's entire recorded output. Or the controversial 'The Dog, The Dog, He's At It Again', that starts as a light pleasant piffle and then slowly progresses up towards a magnificent chorale crescendo carrying you away with it... one thing you gotta realize is that the lyrics are really really gross. "Lonely girl, would you like a sweet to eat?/I've got something that I'd like you to hold/And my brother will tell you that it's good for your cold/So, there, surely there is nothing wrong/Take my hand and we'll try to make a stand/For all censorship, decency, all night long'. And once you understand what that mighty chorus is actually singing about ('Medicine gone, it's coming on strong, it's coming on and on and on' - eh???), the song will take on a whole new life. Turns out Pye Hastings could be even dirtier than Bryan Johnson, the bastard. Still a great song, of course.
On one number, though, Hastings drops the cheerful playfulness and presents us with a fully-developed soul-chilling thriller - 'C'Thlu Thlu', with an unforgettable ominous bass riff and perfectly placed blasts of ethereal synthesizer creepiness, as well as tension-decreasing faster passages that make for some nice contrast. Seeing as the song comes in between the two previously mentioned "lightweight" numbers, one could probably say there's enough mood diversity on the album to... well, enough diversity for me to have something to write about. God bless the Internet and the stream of conscience thing.
However, I see I still haven't mentioned the actual 'rockers'. There are some pop rockers on here, to be sure, like 'Hoedown', which to me seems like a fast-paced country song in pop-rock drag. It doesn't sound much different from the far better 'Memory Lain, Hugh' either; far better, because the latter has a tighter-established groove. That riff ALMOST sounds like something Judas Priest wouldn't have refused in their earliest stages: monotonous, compact, memorable, and so unbearably mid-tempoish it would kill all you hardcore lovers. Of course, the Priests would have played it in a much harder way, but come on now, it's not the hardness that matters. You can make a heavy metal anthem out of anything.
Look, this album is hardly what you'd call "classic". Pye Hastings, the guy, he's all right but he just doesn't have genius, like, I dunno, like Jeff Lynne, for instance. He's got professionalism. Taste, he's got lots of taste. (Okay, those endless lollipop references in 'The Dog The Dog' might testify against that statement, but let's just pretend we never figured out those references). He can make some good riffs and he can make atmosphere, and he even can make some hooks, technically, oh yes he can. But the problem is, this is definitely one album that'll never make me cry. Especially if we consider the standard prog lover's usual favourite on the record - the ten-minute long instrumental epic suite 'A-Hunting We Shall Go', with all of its endless subdivisions. It's got a good orechstrated finale, but I suppose it's mostly good just because it's grandiose. And you know better than me that millions of lame progressive bands knew how to make things 'grandiose', but only a handful of them knew how to make 'grandiose' things really thrilling and imaginative. This suite, for the most part, just bores me. It's better than your standard Kansas piece of mush, because it's fresher and has all those guitar bits fading into those keyboard bits and mixing with the orchestral bits, but it's far from masterpiece status.
But, oh wond'rous fate, the album is still good! When you judge a prog-rock record, the prime criterion is: "Where does this stuff take me?" You're supposed to be taken somewhere, you know. If, say, Tales From Topographic Oceans actually takes you to the realm of topographic oceans, you'll be able to forgive the album any faults... me, I must confess that Tales mostly take me to the realm of indigested watercourses, but not so with this album, which does have a cool medievalistic mood, like any good Caravan album should, and places me directly inside a tenth century forest or so. Apart from the "grande finale", which so unwisely dispenses with the humbleness and "easy charm" of everything else.