Spring

Spring is the reason I seek to own every record you’d never buy. From its brilliant cover art (the pastoral image of a British soldier lying dead in a stream of water is both eerily haunting and strangely beautiful) to its progressive-based, Mellotron-soaked hard rock, this eight-song lp makes up for the handful of mediocre to lame albums I often find buried in the corner of rock’s overstuffed recycling bin. Originally released in 1971 on Neon Records, an imprint of RCA, Spring emerged at the dawn of England’s burgeoning prog-rock movement. The album centers around the intricate keyboard work of the quintet’s three Mellotron players and the unusual yet distinctive lead vocals of singer Pat Moran. “The Prisoner (Eight by Ten),” “Grail” and “Gazing” reveal the subtle complexities of the group’s more elaborate compositions, while “Shipwrecked Soldier,” “Golden Fleece” and “Inside Out” introduce a guitar-driven, rock-oriented approach to the band’s overall sound. The descriptive lyrical content, full of references to places “where fountains weep and gargoyles stare” and “the mad monk rolls the Angelus,” are often mystical in nature, which only adds to the album’s mystique. In the end, all you can do is bow down and give thanks. The glorious gods of ‘70s rock have delivered unto us an album for the ages.

Notes: Guitarist Ray Martinez ended up in a two-record band called Airwaves, while Pique (Pick) Withers became the drummer for Dire Straits.