Broken Barricades is the hardest, heaviest album Procol Harum ever made — the one where the guitar took charge. Released in 1971, it is dominated by Robin Trower, whose ferocious playing pushes the band away from the organ-drenched baroque grandeur that made their name and toward something rawer and tougher. It is also his goodbye: Trower left within weeks of its release to build a career of his own. A muscular, unusual, often underrated record, it marks the end of one Procol Harum and the beginning of another.

The short version

Broken Barricades (1971) is Procol Harum’s fifth album, recorded at AIR Studios in London with producer Chris Thomas. By now the band were a four-piece: Gary Brooker on vocals and piano, Robin Trower on guitar, Chris Copping covering both bass and organ, and B.J. Wilson on drums, with Keith Reid still supplying every lyric. With Matthew Fisher long gone and Copping favouring the bass, the trademark Hammond organ is barely present — and into that space steps Trower, who wrote three of the eight tracks and sings two. The result is their most guitar-driven and hard-rocking album, reaching the Top 50 on both sides of the Atlantic. It was Trower’s last with the band.

The guitarist takes the wheel

The shift had been coming. After Fisher and bassist David Knights left following A Salty Dog, Procol Harum brought in Chris Copping to cover both jobs — and since one man cannot play organ and bass at once on stage, the organ quietly receded. Robin Trower, meanwhile, wanted more room, and here he got it. Sessions ran to some thirty-five lengthy days, and the album that emerged is unmistakably his: three songs of his own, two lead vocals, and his guitar tearing through nearly everything else. Brooker has since acknowledged there was tension in the studio — nothing dramatic, he says, simply a guitarist asking for space. Whatever the cause, Trower departed a month after release, going on to lead his own power trio, produced, as it happens, by his old bandmate Matthew Fisher. Procol Harum carried on, bringing in a new guitarist and a full-time bassist so that Copping could return to the organ where he belonged.

The sound

If you know Procol Harum for stately Hammond organ and baroque grandeur, Broken Barricades will surprise you. This is a rock album: hard, bluesy and loud, built on Robin Trower’s big riffs and searing lead lines, with Gary Brooker’s piano and soulful, weathered voice as the other main instrument, and B.J. Wilson’s busy, dramatic drumming pushing it all along. The classical touches have not vanished entirely — a couple of tracks bring in strings and reach for the old beauty — and Keith Reid’s words are as literate and oblique as ever. But the balance has tilted. It is a leaner, tougher, more physical Procol Harum, closer to hard rock than to the symphonic ambitions of their earlier work.

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The songs

Simple Sister opens the album and is its finest moment: a mighty, ominous Trower riff set against a dramatic string arrangement, with Brooker at his most commanding — an all-time Procol classic. The title track that follows is the opposite, a gorgeous, wistful piano piece in the vein of A Salty Dog. Memorial Drive is a blues-based rocker written by Trower, with Reid reaching for weightier themes of oppression and a world being spoiled; Luskus Delph is a lovely, string-laden ballad and one of the album’s prettiest things. Side two opens with Power Failure, whose driving rock frames a nimble drum showcase from B.J. Wilson, complete with a tongue-in-cheek imaginary ovation. Song for a Dreamer is Trower’s swansong and the album’s strangest track: a drifting, phased, psychedelic piece written with Reid as a tribute to Jimi Hendrix, and a clear signpost to the solo career he was about to begin. Playmate of the Mouth is a brass-flecked studio romp, and Poor Mohammed closes the record with Trower singing over some superb bottleneck guitar.

Reception and legacy

Opinion was split from the start and has never quite settled. Some critics welcomed it warmly — the NME thought the title well earned, praising the band for breaking down rock’s barriers again, and Melody Maker called it another fine piece of work from one of Britain’s best. Others were cooler: Rolling Stone found the sound sluggish and thought Trower had retreated into generic heaviness. Since then the album has quietly gained admirers, often described as a forgotten classic and prized for containing the finest guitar work the band ever put on tape; a few devotees rate it their best of all. What is beyond argument is its place in the story. It is the last Procol Harum album with Robin Trower, the furthest they ever strayed from the organ-led sound that defined them, and the pivot between the classic early band and the orchestral, symphonic phase that would follow with Grand Hotel.

The verdict

Broken Barricades is not where to start with Procol Harum — A Salty Dog holds that honour, and this album deliberately sets aside much of what made the band unique. Come to it expecting Hammond-soaked baroque splendour and you will be disappointed. Come to it as a hard, bluesy rock record with an exceptional guitarist off the leash, and it delivers handsomely: Simple Sister alone is worth the price, the title track is beautiful, and the whole thing has a lean, punchy conviction. It is a fascinating detour, and a genuinely enjoyable one — the sound of a great band pulling hard in two directions at once, captured just before it let go.

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