English Garden
Barra : Eternal Magus (UK,1986-87 re 2002)**° (vg)
From all demos I received years ago I have kept only a few, and Shano and Barra were one of the few. It contained various very promising songs in Celtic folkrock pop style. This demo is happily included. I wondered already what happened to the group. This release is in fact a document of their complete history. It seems that beside this demo the side-history is not more interesting. The label tried to be as complete as possible.
Barra were formed out of two bands, Kingfishers Catch Fire and Holy Trinity with some names with good references. The included tracks (in underground style) from that first group I don't see as having much importance, but included as bonus tracks it at least gives an idea of the other areas the group explored.
Best tracks are "Eternal Magus", "Gnosis", "Green Man", all related with this earlier demo. The other tracks from BBC sessions were not that good. It's sad that Barra's history didn't bring us much further. Maybe they didn't have that much opportunity to record much more. But the good tracks are surely worth discovering. The mentioned tracks are Celtic Folkrock with a "Siouxie and the Banshees"-like power.
