Candle Design

The first time Dandelion label head John Peel heard the Way We Live, courtesy of a demo tape they mailed him, he thought someone was playing a trick on him - some accomplished superstar band, perhaps. Only when he actually met the duo did he discover that they really were as good as their demo insisted, and A Candle for Judith - itself comprising exactly the same songs as that original tape - allows the listener to share in Peel's amazement. Eight tracks find the band drifting across the musical spectrum, sometimes heavy (the opening "King Dick II" sounds almost Sabbath-like), sometimes folky, but never less than fascinating…

The Way We Live wasn't a terribly commercial or compelling name for a rock band, and Tractor is a yet more awkward and less appealing moniker. Yet, for some reason, that's what the Way We Live changed their name to between the 1971 A Candle for Judith album (which turned out to be the only the Way We Live LP) and their 1972 follow-up, Tractor. Both albums are combined onto one CD on this 1994 reissue by See For Miles. A Candle for Judith was uneven, second-division, early-'70s British hippie rock, divided between lumpy, bluesy hard rock and far folkier, pastoral, acoustic-flavored musings. The folk-rockier stuff is better than the harder-rocking stuff, with "Squares" strongly recalling the folkiest…