Cat Stevens - New Masters (1968)

Review by Bruce Eder

New Masters is as uneven musically as its predecessor, Matthew & Son, was bold. It was recorded after Cat Stevens had enjoyed a trio of hit singles of his own and a pair of hits ("Here Comes My Baby," "First Cut Is the Deepest") as a songwriter, but also after he'd started drinking regularly and the hits had stopped coming as easily. As he had also broken with his producer, Mike Hurst, it was – according to Andy Neill – truly a lawyers' record, in the sense that attorneys were all over the studio during the recording, representing both sides of the dispute. And with the record label caught in the middle, the resulting album was allowed to die on the vine in 1967/1968 (though Decca was able to sell it in profusion when it was reissued [especially in America] when Stevens re-emerged as a popular singer/songwriter in the early '70s). In a sense, it's more of the same as Matthew & Son but, intrinsically, not as interesting as a late 1967 release, as the earlier record was as an early 1967 release. The quirky, folky pop sound is there, on songs like "Kitty" and "Northern Wind." Some of it's highly derivative – "The Laughing Apple" owing a bit to "Greenback Dollar," among other songs – interspersed with pop balladry ("Smash Your Heart") and whimsy ("Moonstone," "Ceylon City"), plus the author's version of his own pop-soul standard "The First Cut Is the Deepest."

Track Listing

01. Kitty
02. I'm So Sleepy
03. Northern Wind
04. The Laughing Apple
05. Smash Your Heart
06. Moonstone
07. The First Cut Is the Deepest
08. I'm Gonna Be King
09. Ceylon City
10. Blackness of the Night
11. Come on Baby (Shift That Log)
12. I Love Them All
13. Image of Hell
14. Lovely City (When Do You Laugh)
15. The View From the Top
16. Here Comes My Wife
17. It's a Super (Dupa) Life
18. Where Are You
19. A Bad Night