The Hollies (1979) It's in Everyone of Us - LOST 70s GEMS

The last Hollies album of 70s is called Five Three One - Double Seven O Four, which as the album cover shows, spells Hollies if held upside down on a calculator. It starts promisingly with an smooth keyboard and Afro drum beat interpretation of Murray Head's Say It Ain't So, Joe. Song of the Sun, a Pete Brown tune contains a groovy electric organ that jiggles like you were drowning in a pit of marmite it's so thick and luscious. When I'm Yours has some of Allan Clarke's talent for falsetto, high strung singing in the lead to the deep harmony chorus and some heartfelt lyrics. The Hollies were purging a lot of material from elsewhere like former Cream lyricist Pete Brown and his songwriting partner Toby Hymas, Stormy Waters is the only band entry with a mild harmonica leaden waltz bathed in ghostly harmonies but it doesn't really hit the spot musically unlike the strong lyrical content. Peter Brown's Boys in the Band is a disco version of Calypso with a clavinet underlined bobbing along chorus, but the melody is sweet; as the song says 'a simple melody can free the soul'. Allan Clarke's Satellite Three features a haunted house theme of a synthesizer loop, his most naked and vulnerable singing in the verse over this creepy keyboard riff before another rousing string chorus that lacks any real looseness but the synthesizer warbling in and out in spacey analogue seizures are another audio pleasure.

 It's in Everyone of Us by David Pommeranz is recorded here with a musical and yet spiritual setting with a low mix of strings streaming below one of Clarke's most defiant singing; he sings fittingly for a stage show, belting out some lines whilst carrying the emotions in hushed moments. Drums and the band join in and follow his vocal like a West End show. The backing vocals are warm and countrified and Clarke's vocal twangs a bit too to add flavour and it's good choice for a closer if not exactly representative of a beat group from the 60s. Something to Live For, another Brown/Hymas tune, is probably one of the highlights with it's effective mix of the best elements of this album with a subtle Disco throb, slow atmospheric keyboard and some gallivanting harmonies driving along the tune along, whilst strings dance in dramatic swooping lines in the background as the song antes up in the tag.