I personally love the fourth Bo Hannson's album. It's a cohesive and mature work builded up around relaxing melodies and warm colours. These elements are well imprinted in the opener, the magnum opus titled "Born in the Gentle South" (16,35 minutes). The nordic influence are more sparse, now, keyboards and synthesizers have the most prominent role. The other tracks are in the same vein, slow for the most part with many surprises and unespected changing of tempos that enrich the arrangements. "The Twice Victory" (8,14 minutes) is the other most evident example with an orchestral and anguishing (I don't know why, but it is so) structure.
The titles of the songs are inspired by the verses of famous english poets, Shakespeare and Keats, for instance. The more melancholic sound demonstrates the the disillusionment of Bo Hansson for the music press of that time. Indifference was what they gave him for the release of this jewel! Nowadays seems to be not very different from 1977: I saw in fact many people saying this album is the weakest of his (not large) production. I tell you the truth: Watership Down is the album I listened to the most. It's a sort of hymn, sometimes giving us the opportunity to escape from our reality and travel far from home. In fact the sound is dreamy and floating and the electric guitar shows some references to Pink Floyd.
The bad thing is that it is the last Hansson's album and, for another time, it's sad to see that also this artist had to stop his solo career after so high levels of quality. Review from progarchives.com
Songs / Tracks Listing
1. Born of the gentle South
2. Allegro for a rescue
3. Legend and light
4. Trial and adversity
5. The twice - victory
6. The kingdom brightly smiles
Line-up / Musicians
- Bo Hansson / piano, keyboards, bass, guitar, tambourine
+ Sten Bergman / flute
- Torbjörn Eklund / wooden flutes
- Kenny Håkansson / guitar, bass
- Göran Lagerberg / bass
- Tomas Netzler / bass
- Fredrik Norßn / drums
- Pontus Olsson / piano, recording
- Bo Skoglund / drums, maracas
