Leave the grand hotel and go back to the main Procol Harum page! In Grand Hotels, You'll Find Expensive Prostitutes Overall Album Score: 9.4 out of 10 And classic Procol Harum [studio] album #6 in their discography is a real kicker! Above most everything else, Grand Hotel is the ULTIMATE art-rock album! This album has everything that an art-rock nerd like me could want. It has GOOD melodies, GOOD piano-based arrangements; GOODNESS, this is most definitely a GOOD album! It even has a "Whiter Shade of Pale/A Salty Dog" like masterpiece in it! It's the title track, called "Grand Hotel!" It's so utterly breathtaking and *gasp* that AAAAAAAARGGGHHHHHHHHH, that's just a good song. After downloading this song a year or so back, I simply had to purchase this. I ordered it from someplace in Germany, too. And it came with German bonus tracks. (But they are just shorter versions of songs that were already on the album ... ... ...germans... PLUS, after I had received it in the mail (and opened the package with glitter in my eyeballs), I found out that there a bunch of other good songs on here, too! It didn't strike me as an album like A Salty Dog where I'd just rather listen to the title track 12 times and ignore everything else. NO! I listen to every one of these songs and enjoy them like I enjoy nothing else! ... I enjoy this album more than hot summer nights! ... I enjoy it more than towering glasses of lemonade! ... I enjoy it more than hurdling cold squares of hospital Jello at that catatonic guy in the mental hospital I'm typing this review in!!!!! (I'm not in a mental hospital, by the way.) (I was joking.) (Seriously.) Anyway, enough of that. Let's get on with the traaaack reviiiiiiieeewwwwwwsssss. Overall Album Score: 9.4 out of 10 (Whoah ... this just barely edged out A Salty Dog as the greatest Procol Harum album ever made according to me. I don't really care about it, though. Get them both!) Average Song Score: 9.3 (This is an utterly splendid set of tunes! There ain't a single rotten one in the bunch!) Album Tilt: 9.5 (This is a great album ... a "special" album. Indeed, one of my favorite albums.) Artist Rating: 9.5 (Procol Harum was always the premier art-rock band, weren't they? Grand Hotel goes to even further that legacy.) Track Reviews Grand Hotel 10/10 This one's in the same "grandiose and one-hundred percent wonderful" category that exists two of Procol Harum's other major classics: "A Whiter Shade of Pale" and "A Salty Dog." In short, songs like "Grand Hotel" is exactly why I started liking this band in the first place! This is, as the title would suggest, a grand song! It uses all inspirations from classical music and Brooker turns it into this towering and absolutely transfixing song with multiple parts. A classic!!!!!! Toujours L'Amour 9/10 Oi! Robin Trower left the band! That's no excuse to start rocking! (Er ... right! Procol Harum is a rock band above all else, right?) This one isn't quite as utterly grandiose as "Grand Hotel," but this one is still entertaining. This one is played at such a pace that I'd call it "slightly-menacing." Nice! A Rum Tale 10/10 Yo ho ho! Awwwww! This song is preeeeeeeeeeeeetty! It's giving me the fuzzies! This is another wunna them classic Procol Harum tunes that uses only a piano and an organ (and whatever other instruments they use in Trower-less Procol Harum) ... and it is absolutely and 100 percent gorgeous. Stuff like this makes me happy that Trower hit the road. For the record, this isn't as good as "Grand Hotel." This is a low-10 and "Grand Hotel" was a high-10. But they tie mathematically. (It's like 1/2 is such a superior number compared to 2/4). T.V. Caesar 8.5/10 I do understand the complaints about this one having too simple of a melody. But call be Mr. Tibbs, I still like it! The instrumentation is what I especially enjoy about this one (like most of the other songs on here). And ... WHOAH ... they found another guitarist! (His name is Mick Grabham ... he must have an interesting wife.) Souvenir of London 9/10 This is simply more niceties from the nice PROCOL HARUM ... and they rule all ... over your mother. Again! A good tune! Entertaining instrumentation! The strange rhythms they dress this one up with (those things must be spoons or something) makes this one stand out. Bringing Home the Bacon 8.5/10 Hey! Does this mean they have a connection to Kevin Bacon? (Dude! That's awesome!) And this song is completely awesome! Unfortunately, it doesn't strike as particularly special as a lot of the other songs on here (mostly because of the weaker melody) ... but it's still cool. For Liquorice John 9.5/10 This is spooky! That prepared piano (if that's what the hell I should be calling it) is hauntingly beautiful ... and the melody here is very nice! Oh man! This is yet another truly entrancing song for the kiddies. Fires (Which Burnt Brightly) 10/10 And here's another crowning achievement for Procol Harum! It's yet another classical-music-inspired song. It doesn't really start getting good until the middle part of it when it significantly picks up pace. Throughout the thing, we get this female voice. (I do wish they would have found a nicer female singer, cause this singing is rather hollow ... but it's like a typical choral work from the Baroque era, I suppose.) Above many of the other highlights, this is a highlight! Robert's Box 9.5/10 Whoah! You would never have expected Procol Harum to end their album with a strange novelty-type, latin-esque song! It's pretty good, actually! The melody, by default, is the catchiest one on the album ... and it's enjoyable! The end of this picks up into the more heavenly-sound Procol Harum mastered from the album's title track. BONUS TRACKS I have the German (STRAFFFFFEUGGHH ICT NINE BICCKKKH DISTRAFUGH!!!!!!!) release of this album, and they include the shorter single versions of "Grand Hotel" and "Robert's Box." It's not that I don't like listening to these songs again ... it's just that including these was kind of pointless, wasn't it! I mean ... we have the full version already. Why do we need the single versions? Eh! It's a bonus! I shouldn't complain about that! Do you agree with this review? How expensive was the prostitute you met? Leave your comments here!

All reviews are copyrighted by the author, Michael Lawrence. He dropped out of prostitution school. His teachers wrote on his report card "clothes too difficult to rip off."