October 1971 - Focus and Moving Waves

A new band enters my library in October 1971 when Dutch band Focus released their second album, "Moving Waves". But who are Focus? They are a four-piece progressive rock band from Amsterdam, however only two original members remain on this album. They are guitarist Jan Akkerman and keyboardist/flutist/singer Thijs van Leer. After their rhythm section left after their first album they recruited bassist Cyril Havermans and drummer Pierre van der Linden. This new four-piece recorded this album and it would become a commercial breakthrough for Focus. Let's see what these Dutch rockers sound like!

Side one starts with the near 7-minute "Hocus Pocus", and it starts and is carried by an epic guitar riff. It really is a great riff, good enough to base a whole song around! We hear a nice fill from van der Linden followed by the first verse. This formula is followed throughout the song: epic riff, cool drum fill, crazy verse. They repeat this formula 8 times and it seemingly gets better every time. The first verse has van Leer yodeling. Yes, you read that correctly, yodeling, and quite well I might add. He also plays organ in the background and a cool bass riff by Havermans brings it back to the epic guitar riff. A slightly better drum fill, and another verse of yodeling follow, but on the third go round Akkerman solos overtop of the epic riff. It's a pretty awesome solo and after another cool drum fill the third verse is ot yodeling. It has van Leer doing some weird wordless vocals, but seems very fitting for the song. The fourth go round is back to yodeling and similar to the second one, but Akkerman delivers another excellent guitar solo on the fifth go, we hear another fantastic drum fill, and in this verse we hear van Leer do a very cool flute solo! Cue the sixth turn: epic riff, cool fill and now another different verse, this time with van Leer on Mellotron and whistling. The seventh run starts with our third and final guitar solo and Akkerman just keeps the hots coming, as does van der Linden with yet another great drum fill; all of them are different. One last yodeling verse leads to one last epic riff and one final drum fill to end the song. Once you find something that works, stick to it I guess! This is a fantastic song that never lets up and a wonderful way to start the album. The mood definitely changes with the next track "Le Clochard", which is a short acoustic song. With organ backing, Akkerman plays some slow artistic the first minute and then speeds it up for some cool faster parts in the second half. Track 3 is titled "Janis" and is led by a sad-sounding flute riff by van Leer. It's a slow jam with some cool bass as well, but they track van Leer's flute several times so it sounds like there are several. This makes a cool effect and really shows off van Leer's flute skills. The next song is the title track, "Moving Waves" and features van Leer as the only player all song. He opens on some sad piano and we hear him sing some sensible lyrics for the first time. He's a pretty good singer, and plays some fast scales and has several cool flourishes. He is all over the piano on this one and van Leer is certainly showing he is great at multiple instruments. The final song on side one is "Focus II" and has a slow organ opening. Van Leer quickly switches to piano though as Akkerman's guitar and it start a new riff. This song has a whole bunch of time signature shifts and they never play the same bit for more than a few bars. They do an excellent job stitching them all together into a coherent song, with a few cool faster parts, and mostly slower ones. Focus are showing their progressiveness on this track, something that really shines on the next song.

Side two is entirely taken up by the 23-minute track "Eruption". Focus become my fourth band to use up an entire side of a record on one epic song with several interconnected sections. There are 15 different parts to this song, and normally after I've listened to the music I take my thoughts and assemble them into coherent speech, but for this song I thought it fitting to leave my initial take as is. See for yourself, with the numbers marking each section.

1 Slow organ opening with harmonium on top. Sounds epic. 2 New cool faster organ riff with bass backing. 3 Back to slow opening, drums this time. 4 Answering with fast part again, awesome drum solo! 5 Slow cool bass with light organ and ahhing. 6 Cool guitar on top, leads to full-blown guitar solo. 7 Slow but cool. Extended with cool bass backing. 8 Fast guitar and organ part together, wicked synchronized riff! 9 Awesome part with great contributions from everyone. Really fuckin good guitar man! Goes on for a while, great stuff! Synchronized again. Now organ solo time. Also really great stuff! Synchronized again. Fuckin great true guitar solo out of nowhere. 10 Cool piano riff takes over now with guitar overtop. Flutes replace guitar, and sound beautiful. 11 Segue into slow part with church-y organ and wordless vocals. Mellotrons as well, thundering riff comes in. 12 Drum solo now. Really awesome drum solo! Everyone is killing it! Fantastic stuff! 13 Back to cool second part briefly, 14 then slow with return to first part. 15 Return to cool piano riff til end. Guitar overtop changes to flute. Drums flourish to end.

I don't plan to make this a trend, but I thought it was a cool look into how there are clearly 15 defined parts, yet every one of them leads seamlessly into the next one to create this 23 minute masterpiece. If you couldn't tell from the expletives, the ninth part called "The Bridge" is my favourite for sure, lots of great stuff in there, and that wraps up "Moving Waves". "Hocus Pocus" and "Eruption" are both amazing songs that carry the weight of most of the album. The others are not bad either, making this quite a good album.