Homburg and Other Hats

Contemporary album review

Stuart Maconie in Q magazine, December 1995

Though voted the best British single ever when the BPI celebrated the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977, it's a shame that Procol Harum are best known for A Whiter Shade of Pale, a hugely overrated contrivance of hippy drivel. The combination of non-player Keith Reid's lyrics with Gary Brooker's warmly abrasive vocal style and an ambitious approach to arrangements made them sporadically absorbing down the years.

This is a wide-ranging compilation in which the majestic A Salty Dog, the plaintive Homburg, plus other triumphs such as their last hit, the edgily claustrophobic Pandora's Box are set against the indignities of their horrible mid-70s rock period [sic] where Mick Grabham [sic!] leaves trails of guitar slime over rotten songs like Whisky Train and The Devil Came from Kansas. That these made the cut and not the lovely Magdalene My Regal Zonophone is barmy.