Why Junior’s Eyes confusingly chose to name their one and only long player after the iconic grade II listed Battersea Power Station can only be explained by the band themselves. For the curious music listener this might be a good enough reason for those with a favourable disposition towards that iconic landmark to purchase the CD. You might be forgiven for thinking that this album by the very obscure progressive rock outfit Junior’s Eyes is an ode to arguably London’s most famous modernist landmark.
The album, which was released in 1969, is a curious mix of prog meets soulful rock with a so-called narrative in the form of a continuous suite, which forms the basis of side 1 of the original LP. In the liner notes guitarist Mick Wayne suggested that there was a narrative of sorts, which references the Tibetan Book Of The Dead and a rather vague idea of ‘layers of conscience and consciousness’, which is not clear despite the song-cycle glueing seamlessly, the songs themselves seem completely unconnected to each other.
Cherry Red Records subsidiary Esoteric Records do a really quite remarkable job of uncovering obscure albums from the late 1960s and early 1970s for our listening pleasure. With their customary care and diligence they have released this album as a 2 CD set with the first disc comprising the re-mastered album with the second disc comprising singles, demos and a couple of BBC sessions thrown in for good measure.
The liner notes are detailed and impressive and give some useful background information on how Junior’s Eyes came into existence. For musicologists and prog and psych fans the notes fill in some important musical and historical gaps, which make this particular album more of a curiosity to a hardened fan of late 60s and early 70s prog and psych as opposed to an essential listening piece.
There are several reasons why this album might pique the interest of rabid prog and psych aficionados. Firstly this particular project was overseen by the maverick producer Toni Visconti, whose impressive CV includes producing a clutch of classic albums by David Bowie, T Rex, The Moody Blues, Sparks, Iggy Pop and countless others. The Battersea Power Station album is also notable for featuring the symphonic prog rock artist of pomposity Rick Wakeman who contributed keyboards to BPS, and the late Mick Wayne who was the sole lyricist and lead guitarist in Junior’s Eyes. Wayne also moonlighted as a session musician at the time of recording BPS, and he contributed lead guitar to David Bowie’s breakthrough hit Space Oddity, as well as being an integral part of Bowie’s touring band in 1968/69.
Toni Visconti is arguably one of the most respected and highly sought after music producers in the business; however, he was unable to mask the obvious flaws on this album. For example, there is no clear vision lyrically and the album in general seems rather aimless and what we are left with is a series of songs that are rather too earnest to be taken seriously (My Ship) and (White Light) with occasional flights of whimsy, (Miss Lizzie) and (I’m Drowning), which overall have very little to say. Instead Junior’s Eyes come across as an inferior soulful rock version of Traffic and Free.
The album sadly falls a bit flat because there are no real memorable hooks and it does not stick long in the memory even after repeated listens. The album opens promisingly with the guitar drenched feedback howl of Total War and the single Circus Days, but the album soon runs into trouble and all too often it relies on elongated drum and guitar solos, which all too often on late 60s and early 70s AOR meant only one thing, when you have nothing to say then just rely on the so called tried and tested method of stadium sized rock god riffs and bombastic blues rock stodge to try and make up for the lack of any real song writing craft. To be fair though Junior’s Eyes were not the only band guilty of this.
Battersea Power Station is for collectors of psych and prog only. The album is no more than a historical oddity and is neither conceptual as the liner notes suggest or a classic blues rock album. Battersea Power Station is a letdown because of the songs themselves, which are lazily written and only just about passable because of the somewhat gravelly soulful vocal delivery of Graham Kelly. The late Mick Wayne’s guitar riffs are ok and the occasional use of Wakeman’s mellotron aside the album is just a series of meandering songs and the idea of a narrative on side 1 of the original LP is just not convincing, and the album as a whole sounds disjointed without any clear focus or direction.
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