Coming from the 1960s, the Hollies were never really known as an album oriented band, with thei albums mostly showcasing several great songs and a considerable amount of lesser ones. The band survived a series of departures, with Graham Nash staying in California and joining Crosby, Stills & Nash, and Allan Clarke pursuing a solo career for a bit around the time of this album. Over ten albums into their career, this was mid-way through their run on Epic records, a time of several big hits in "Long Cool Woman In a Black Dress" and "Air that I Breathe," but found them in find album-making mode. With Clarke's replacement Mikael Rickfors on vocals, they sometimes don't even sound like the Hollies until perrenials Tony Hicks and Terry Sylvester kick in their harmonies. While a few of the songs look towards repeating their other hits from the time, there's also tracks like "Words Don't Come Easy," with light bongo drums and minimal playing that give it dimension. They follow that with a bit of power-pop bombast with "Magic Woman Touch," a sort of minor hit at the time. It's agreeable enough in a sort of Raspberries sort of way, but they had done better and would do better. The cover art is very similar to 'Distant Light,' the hit album with "Long Cool Woman...", but it's nothing like it. They had a great quality to them in this most overlooked of Hollies line-ups, self-produced, highly proficient, and pristine arrangements, but none of it suggests almost classic status. There was an expanded edition released a few years ago that almost doubled the track listing. I'd be interested in hearing what the rest of it sounded like, and curious to see if any of the magic of the classic Hollies material made it to the other songs from this era.

Incidently, the cover is a Hipgnosis cover! One of their least-Hipgnosis looking efforts for sure!