The Hollies - The Hollies Evolution (Parlophone 1967) 24-bit/96kHz Vinyl Rip

Evolution is The Hollies’ pure pop album. Despite it’s garish mind-bending sleeve, it’s only musical concession to psychedelia is a liberal sprinkling of the kind of studio fairy dust which was becoming commonplace by this point. Neither of the preceding singles are included and none were subsequently lifted from it, more proof of the Clarke/Hicks/Nash team’s increasingly prolific output. The Searchers had taken "Have You Ever Loved Somebody" into the charts a year earlier but here The Hollies drenched their version in over-the-top distorted guitar and played it twice as fast. The album opener "Then The Heartaches Begin" also benefits from Tony Hicks’ newly acquired fuzz box. At the other extreme are "Lullaby For Tim", Allan Clarke’s fairytale paean to his son, sabotaged by Nash whose lead vocal is piped through a gimmicky underwater effect, and Nash’s own unbearably twee "Ye Olde Toffee Shoppe". Somewhere in between these two ends of the spectrum are some of the strongest yet most understated songs in Hollie-dom. "Water On The Brain", "You Need Love", "Heading For A Fall" and "When Your Light’s Turned On" seem unremarkable at first but grow into ludicrously catchy pop gems upon further listening. Nash does his introspective minstrel routine to great effect on "Stop Right There" and the closing "The Games We Play" is a smile-inducing theme tune to an English summer’s day, complete with northern accents and seaside postcard double entendres.
The production is a little murky in places, probably due to the piecemeal way in which it had been recorded at various fitful sessions over a two month period. Sadly, the album failed to light up the charts, barely scraping the Top 40. 1967 was the year that albums began to outsell singles and, outside a handful of lucky exceptions (Beatles, Stones, Who), you were deemed either a singles band or an albums band. marmalade-skies.co.uk

Track listing:

A1. Then The Heartaches Begin

A2. Stop Right There

A3. Water On The Brain

A4. Lullaby To Tim

A5. Have You Ever Loved Somebody

A6. You Need Love

B1. Rain On The Window

B2. Heading For A Fall

B3. Ye Olde Toffee Shoppe

B4. When Your Light's Turned On

B5. Leave Me

A6. The Games We Play

All composed by Clarke-Hicks-Nash
Produced by Ron Richards
Cover design and artwork by Simon & Marijke (The Fool)
Front photographic design by Karl Ferris.