The Quality of Mercy (album)

Background

Since 2000, Harley had been working on the recording of a new studio album, and during this year he also began talks with various record companies. In a September 2000 diary entry for his official website, Harley commented:

"Plans to further the recording career at in hand. Negotiations are taking place daily and constantly. I am determined that "A Friend for Life" will be available in the shops and on the radio in time for the next Spring band tour, with an album, God willing, in the can. I am the eternal optimist, as you probably know. I have "A Friend for Life" and "When the Halo Slips" and several others 90% finished on record."

Later in November, Harley revealed: "If the deal I want is forthcoming and a contract signed within, then I'll be studio-bound through January and February making that album. There are something like 50 songs half-to-75% finished on cassettes and mini-discs around my study, bags, and all around the grand piano." Although the single "A Friend for Life" was released in April 2001 by Intrinsic Records, no studio album would be released until 2005.

Between 2001 and 2005, Harley continued to write new material, record in the studio and hold discussions with various record labels. Later in August 2004, Harley commented in an online diary entry that he was still writing new material and that the upcoming album would include "A Friend for Life" and "The Last Feast".

In February 2005, Harley and his touring band Cockney Rebel went into the Gemini Recording Studio in Ipswich to start recording for what would become The Quality of Mercy. In an entry from that month, Harley commented of the week-long recording session:

"We are all pretty high, to be honest. The band have played with spirit and shown an understanding of my new songs that comes best from musicians you've got close to over hundreds of touring concerts. I left six new recordings, all about 70% finished, to go back to soon."

By June 2005, recording sessions for the album were coming to an end. In a June diary entry, he commented: "I am recording the best album I have ever recorded. This album is huge. I do not know where it is coming from." Later in the month, he added: "This is a proper record, all right. We have recorded part-analogue, part-digital and have mixed on the highest grade of Pro-tools. It sounds delicious. It has all cost a lot of money, but sounds like it cost much more."

During the summer, British photographer Mick Rock visited London and recorded an episode for Harley's BBC Radio 2 show Sounds of the Seventies. Having completed the episode, the pair then went outside Broadcasting House for an impromptu photo session for The Quality of Mercy album cover. The shoot was completed in 20 minutes. It was originally planned for Manfred Esser to shoot the album's cover photo in Germany earlier in April.

Harley aimed to complete the album in time for the band's planned touring schedule later in the year. As Harley's biggest UK and European tour since the 1970s, the tour was made up of over 50 dates between late September and early December. It was to be the main form of promotion for the album. In his effort to complete it on time, the album's mixing was completed over the course of six days at Harley's home with the assistance of Matt Butler.

The Quality of Mercy was released in the UK in October 2005 by Gott Discs. Although it gained strong critical reviews, the album failed to enter the UK Albums Chart. In February 2006, "The Last Goodbye", from the album, was released as a single. It reached #186 in the UK Top 200, and #21 on the UK Independent Singles Chart. Later in March 2006, The Quality of Mercy was released in Norway by Universal Music. It peaked at #40 there.

In a June 2005 interview for Record Collector, Harley had commented: "My first DVD is out and I'm recording The Quality of Mercy. I don't know if it'll ever be like the first Cockney Rebel, when I had a thousand ideas, but I felt like I'm 22 again." In a September 2005 interview with icLiverpool, he added: "Suddenly that inspiration is there and you go for broke – I managed to write seven or eight songs in about a month."

Noted to have been Harley's most personal album, Harley revealed to Brighton Argus in October 2005:

"In the past, I never exposed myself. I always couched my meaning in metaphor and allegory. But now I've had enough of covering up. So the songs are more explicit. There's blood in these tracks. I like to please people, I don't like rejection. But with this album, I've written it for me. Not to get hit records, please the music company or even the fans, just for me. And I can honestly say I've used everything I've been given. This is what I want people to remember me for. Not just 'Make Me Smile'."

At his "An Audience With....." show in Stamford, Lincolnshire, earlier in 2005, Harley spoke of the album and its recording:

"I am making a record that pleases me - I can only hope it then pleases lots of other people, including the critics. We have a wild drum sound on the rocky tracks and the lyrics are flowing once again. I am very, very excited about this project. The band have looked at me as though I'm mad, when I've put forward certain production ideas, but they've come to accept now that sometimes the safe way is not necessarily the best way forward."

Song information

"Journey's End (A Father's Promise)" was written when Harley's son, Kerr Nice, left his parent's home. On the track, Kerr Nice plays piano. At one point in mid-2005, "Journey's End (A Father's Promise)" was considered as a single, to be released in August, however this never materialised.

"Saturday Night at the Fair" was originally titled "Having a Night at the Fair". After having piano and strings added to the track by James Larcelles in October 2004, Harley described the song as "dancey, romantic (even saucy, dear)" in a diary entry. He added: "Sounds extremely radio-friendly to my old ears at this stage, and so I will probably (shamefully) gear it deliberately in that direction."

"The Last Feast" is a song lasting over seven minutes and features eight-verses. The song recalls Harley's near-fatal contraction of childhood polio. It had been written in a couple of days at Algarve in Portugal. In the Brighton Argus interview, Harley commented: "I was in Brighton. My mum was in hospital in London giving birth and my sister and I were sent to stay at my gran's in Hangleton Road. I could barely walk. When I returned to London, my dad said, 'Steve isn't right'. It was diagnosed as flu but my dad took me to hospital and I was found to be dying. That's why I sing the line, 'I've been dreaming I'm in paradise.' It's cathartic to sing about it." "The Last Feast" first appeared on the 2002 live acoustic album Acoustic and Pure: Live. Another live version also surfaced on the 2004 album Anytime! (A Live Set).

"The Coast of Amalfi" was inspired by the Italian town of the same name. The lyrics were penned in early 2005. In an October 2008 interview on songwriting and poetry for The Argotist Online, Harley spoke of the structure of "The Coast of Amalfi", saying: "I have written several songs with no middle-eight, no discernable bridge, and even no chorus, per se. Try 'The Coast Of Amalfi' on my most recent CD. Narrative can be more interesting to a listener, but the story must hold their attention if no chorus appears for them to hum along to." Later in 2008, Hans Peter Janssens, a Belgian musical actor, recorded a cover of "The Coast Of Amalfi" in Italian ("La Costa Di Amalfi"). The cover used the band's original recording, including Harley's English-language vocal as a "shadow vocal". Before this, Jannsens had recorded a cover of Cockney Rebel's 1973 European hit "Sebastian".

"A Friend for Life" had been released as a non-album single in 2001, and had peaked at #125 in the UK. The song, written by Harley and Jim Cregan, was originally offered to Rod Stewart, who would later record the song for his 2015 album Another Country. The Quality of Mercy features Harley's original 2000 recording of the song.

The song "For Sale. Baby Shoes. Never Worn" was originally to be included on the album, and was mentioned in Harley's diary as having been recorded during the February 2005 sessions. However, it did not make the final track listing. It was later re-recorded, appearing on Harley's 2010 studio album Stranger Comes to Town.

Release

The album was released on CD in the UK in October 2005, by Gott Discs, with Pinnacle Records handling the album's distribution. Later in March 2006, Universal Music released the album in Norway.

In February 2006, Harley was also in talks with a record company over releasing The Quality of Mercy in America. Such a release never came to fruition.

In June 2005, before the release of the album, Gott Discs had released a 30th Anniversary Re-mix of the band's 1975 UK number one "Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)" as a single. On the CD edition of the single, a preview of the forthcoming album was titled "The Quality of Mercy Taster". This preview track featured an extract of two songs; "Saturday Night at the Fair" and "The Coast of Amalfi".

Critical reception

Critically the album was well received by both critics and fans.

In the 9 October 2005 issue of The Sunday Express, a review of The Quality of Mercy stated: "A genuine Seventies pop maverick – who once shared a stage with Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush – Harley has evolved into a highly-literate and intimate balladeer. "The Coast of Amalfi," and "A Friend for Life" are elegant if care-worn gems."

In the Record Collector, Nick Dalton reviewed the album, and wrote: "Steve Harley's first Cockney Rebel album in 26 years may owe more to his softer, recent solo work than the arty scratch and scream of his original band, but it's sublime. Harley proves he's lost none of his word power, nor indeed his knack with a good tune, with songs like the moody, swirling "The Coast of Amalfi" or the introspective seven-minute guitar blast of "The Last Feast". The band stretches out of the confines of simple rock instrumentation with sawing violin and classical piano, while Jim Cregan, guitarist during the "Make Me Smile" heyday, adds a delicate solo on the reflective "A Friend for Life," one of three tracks he's co-written. At times you're taken back to the early days, although the album reflects on past glories rather than setting out to recreate them. It's a mature piece of work, yet not without an engaging edginess and irrepressible enthusiasm."

In the November 2005 issue of Q Magazine, John Aizelwood stated: "To the delight of Steve Harley's bank manager, his back catalogue will always feature "Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me). To the delight of his fan base, his occasional new albums disappoint nobody. On "Journey's End (A Father's Promise)," he takes what might have been mawkish father-son tosh and makes it moving and if "The Coast of Amalfi" is lyrically stuck in the '70s, its gorgeous melody is timeless. The centrepiece is the eight autobiographical minutes of "The Last Feast," where Harley tells us, apropos of nothing, "I've been to Athens and I've been to Seville"."

Carol Clerk of Classic Rock magazine reviewed the album in November 2005, commenting: "Baring his soul in public for the first time, Steve Harley has produced what might just be his best album to date. "The Quality of Mercy" is brimful of songs that are intensely personal and sometimes harrowing but, musically, very approachable. Here, Harley surveys his reality as a middle-aged father hoping his 25-year marriage will survive the empty-nest crisis. Still, the bright up-tempos of "The Last Goodbye" and the lovely, gentle melodies that carry "Journey's End (A Father's Promise)" and "A Friend for Life" offset the deep anxieties at the heart of the lyrics. In other places, Harley picks over the past, coming down heavy with angry electric guitars in "The Last Feast" as he confronts the childhood polio that led to his disability."

In a negative review of the album for November 2005's issue of Uncut magazine, Nick Hasted wrote: "The acerbic swagger of Harley's real Rebel years is absent on this set with his rechristened road band. Though "Saturday Night at the Fair"'s couple contemplate acting "devil-may-care" to glam guitar, Harley's concerns now are adult: fathers and sons, nostalgia and ennui, presented with the self-importance of an adolescent, minus the energy. "A Friend for Life" retains some brutal Cockney bite about married stasis, and "The Coast of Amalfi"'s dope reverie is artful. Otherwise, ignore."

In 2005, Steve Best of the Christian media organisation Cross Rhythms reviewed the album. He stated: "From late 2005 comes this latest offering from one of the UK's most enduring and indeed endearing songsmiths, still sounding great after over 30 years on the road. Musically this record references much of Harley's past glories. It is beautifully written and performed with a very British folk-pop sound – some nice violin on "Journey's End (A Father's Promise)" and "No Rain on This Parade" on which Harley's voice really harks back to earlier times, and the jaunty "When the Halo Slips". The only track that doesn't really seem to fit is the lengthy power ballad "The Last Feast" but this is really only a minor quibble, as this is a fine piece of work."

In a 2005 review of the album by Birmingham 101 Gig Guide, the reviewer wrote: "Harley's in fine voice, at times sounding not unlike a cross between Sting, Gerry Rafferty and (on the superb "The Coast of Amalfi") Chris De Burgh, and this is easily the best thing he's done in years. Co-penned by ex Rebel Jim Cregan, opening track "The Last Goodbye" shows his ability to pen classic, radio friendly quality pop hasn't dimmed with the years, a fact ably reiterated by the chorus friendly tumbling folksy "Saturday Night at the Fair" and the 60s sounding "No Rain on This Parade". But if the uptempo material shines, the slower songs positively glow. A father's hymn of love to their child, "Journey's End (A Father's Promise)" mines a seam of Celtic folk influence, the God searching "Save Me (From My Self)" with its keening pedal steel and the closing plea for enduring love "A Friend For Life" are all stand-outs, but the centerpiece surely has to be "The Last Feast", a seven-minute throaty slow blues-rock burner that again finds Harley confronting God as he addresses the fear of mortality. Giving it the full works after a spate of solo acoustic dates, no doubt fan demands will mean much of the set focus is on past favourites, but there's material here that will stand the test of time just as strongly."

Rune Westengen of the Norwegian site RB, reviewed the album upon its release, commenting: "He broke through with Cockney Rebel in the mid-70's and has worked steadily with lyrics and music. It is now nearly ten years since the last album, so it might just as expected because here he presents a very varied and elaborate handful of songs. The album is primarily characterised by strong melodies, like the fine, melancholy ballad "Journey's End" and the more rocking, Costello-like "The Last Goodbye". A plate which is growing quite spectacular, with several melodies that stick in the brain. Harley is in fine form on vocals, and the arrangements are tight and powerful."

In 2010, German site Rocktimes published a review of Harley's 2010 studio album Stranger Comes to Town. In the review, Michael Schröder mentioned The Quality of Mercy, stating: "With Cockney Rebel, in 2005 he took his most recent album "The Quality of Mercy" which I lay to everybody with pleasure in the heart. Soulful put forward and emotional songs that seek their equal. Now, five years later, there is his latest work "Stranger Comes To Town"."

Singles

A Friend for Life

The Last Goodbye

Personnel

Band

Additional musicians

Production

Design

Other