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Cricklewood Green provides the best example
of Ten Years After's recorded sound. On this album, the band and engineer
Andy Johns mix studio tricks and sound effects, blues-based song
structures, a driving rhythm section, and Alvin Lee's signature
lightning-fast guitar licks into a unified album that flows nicely from
start to finish. Cricklewood Green opens with a pair of bluesy rockers,
with "Working on the Road" propelled by a guitar and organ riff that holds
the listener's attention through the use of tape manipulation as the song
develops. "50,000 Miles Beneath My Brain" and "Love Like a Man" are
classics of TYA's jam genre, with lyrically meaningless verses setting up
extended guitar workouts that build in intensity, rhythmically and
sonically. The latter was an FM-radio staple in the early '70s. "Year 3000
Blues" is a country romp sprinkled with Lee's silly sci-fi lyrics, while "Me
and My Baby" concisely showcases the band's jazz licks better than any
other TYA studio track, and features a tasty piano solo by Chick
Churchill. It has a feel similar to the extended pieces on side one of the
live album Undead. "Circles" is a hippie-ish acoustic guitar piece, while
"As the Sun Still Burns Away" closes the album by building on another
classic guitar-organ riff and more sci-fi sound effects.
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