Wrecked Again (Remastered 2013)

Michael Chapman is a difficult character to pin down. He’s unquestionably one of the most talented British guitarists of his generation. Yet while he could play with all the masterful ease of some of the more traditionally minded guitarists of the British folk revival, his own solo work rarely trod the straight and narrow path of folksy murder ballads, Celtic reels, and hippie idealism. Instead, Chapman’s four loose, rangy solo LPs for EMI’s Harvest subsidiary run the stylistic gamut from deftly fingerpicked folk idylls to hard-charging rock 'n' roll. Chapman’s restless eclecticism may have made him a difficult sell in an era when three-chord glam anthems ruled the British airwaves, but it makes albums like 1971’s Wrecked Again endlessly compelling. Wrecked Again was Chapman’s final LP for Harvest; it splits the difference between the muscular folk rock of 1970’s Fully Qualified Survivor and the more reflective traditionalism of his 1969 debut, Rainmaker. The majority of Wrecked Again features long-form folk-rock ruminations like the disconsolate “Back on Your Own” and the title track, a battered but unbowed survivor’s anthem.