Critic's Review
Bruce Eder, All Music Guide
The single most accomplished album to be recorded by any of the Birmingham rock bands (which include the Moody Blues), Shazam is sort of Sgt. Pepper with an attitude, a mixture of expansive progressive rock worthy of the Beatles and high-energy music honed by years of playing loud on-stage. The rendition of Tom Paxton's "The Last Thing on My Mind" pushes these guys simultaneously into Byrds and Jimi Hendrix territory, while "Beautiful Daughter" is one of the most unabashedly pretty records of this era, and "Cherry Blossom Clinic Revisited" is defiantly strange. The album only exists as an import from Japan, paired up on one CD with the earlier Flowers in the Rain album (all songs in print domestically or a better German version filled out with five live tracks from London's Marquee Club, off of the super-rare Something Else EP).
