National Health- National Health

National Health were the last of the Great Canterbury Scene bands, with a brief two album career in 1977-78. Formed earlier in 1975, the band mostly centered around Alan Gowen, formerly of Gilgamesh, and Dave L. Stewart, formerly of many Canterbury bands like Egg and Hatfield and the North. Phil Miner on Guitar, Neil Murray on Bass, and Pip Pyle on the Drums rounded out the lineup. Since it was a super group of sorts, expectations were high for this 1977 debut. It was extensively toured, and featured contributions from Jimmy Hastings (Woodwinds), John Mitchell (Guava/Congos), and Amanda Parsons (vocals).

The first song on National Health, “Tenemos Roads”, fades in with synths before going into a keyboard and bass driven main melody. It’s a rather lighthearted one, but the bass really does sound menacing underneath. This song perfectly shows how the jazz influences in the Canterbury scene can work well in a rock context, and it was done during the rise of punk at that! When the vocal finaly does come in after nearly 6 minutes, it’s high pitched and a bit hard to understand at times, but it suits the light “day out” melody. One of my favorite Prog songs. Next up comes “Brujo”. This one is similar to “Tenemos Roads” with its light jazz influences, heavy bass, keyboard lead, however, rather than getting the listened involved, it meanders along with an adagio tempo, and latter speeds up but doesn’t pick up. Unfortunately, I can’t recommend much here, except for the jazzy guitar workout towards the end.

Side B opens with “Borogroves”, which has several movements. Some are slow and bass-filled, some showcase Miner’s guitar, some are keyboard driven. Interestingly, the digital version I purchased of National Health has this song cut in two; with part two coming before part one. Overall, a nice piece with few movements that are not up to scratch. The album wraps up with “Elephants”. Here they used some weird trickery in stereo to make some strange percussive effects. The guitar moves around well, also. This piece has the darkest mood of all involved. Midway through, we have a reprise of “Tenemos Roads”, leading to similar but slightly different patterns mixing themes from the two.

Where this album is strong comes from the great skill of each individual musician. You can tell they all really have taken time to perfect their craft extensively. As a result, there are many advanced structures spread through the album. However, many of them aren’t entirely interesting, especialy some of the more cliché parts of “Elephants” and the slower parts of “Brujo”.

On the whole, a solid album. “Tenemos Roads” alone is worth the price of admission. In the modern age of fast forwarding, it won’t surprise me if you skip some some parts, but it still has lots to offer. National Health gets a Grade of C+.