Expletive Delighted is to date the only wholly instrumental Fairport Convention album. While the idea of an instrumental Fairport Convention album appeals to me a lot since I find the instrumental numbers on many of their other albums generally highly enjoyable, the actual result is not too impressive. Nothing here is bad by any means, but I feel that this could have been so much better and more interesting than it is. The instrumental numbers on other albums of this period in the bands career were often among the better and most progressive tracks on those albums, but here they serve us instrumental Fairport by the numbers. While the up-tempo numbers are good enough even if hardly among the band's better tunes of that kind, the slower numbers are quite dull and come across as transportation. Indeed, some of these tunes just sound a bit like average Fairport numbers simply stripped of their vocals.
Reviewed by SouthSideoftheSky
01 - The Rutland Reel - Sack The Juggler
02 - The Cat On The Mixer - Three Left Feet
03 - Bankruptured
04 - Portmeirion
05 - Jams O'donnell's Jig
06 - Expletive Delighted
07 - Sigh Beg Sigh Mór
08 - Innstück
09 - The Gas Almost Works
10 - Hanks For The Memory Shazam - Pipeline - Apache - Peter Gunn
Acoustic Guitar, Electric Guitar – Simon Nicol
Acoustic Guitar, Electric Guitar, Bouzouki, Slide Guitar, Mandolin, Mandola – Martin Allcock
Bass, Mandola – Dave Pegg
Double Bass – Martin Allcock (tracks: 3)
Drums, Percussion, Keyboards – Dave Mattacks
Guest [Special Guest], Lead Guitar – Jerry Donahue (tracks: 10), Richard Thompson (tracks: 10)
Instruments [All But Percussion And Violin] – Martin Allcock (tracks: 8)
Keyboards – Ric Sanders (tracks: 4)
Lead Guitar [Acoustic] – Dave Pegg (tracks: 3)
Soloist [Acoustic] – Martin Allcock (tracks: 4)
Violin [Electric And Octave] – Ric Sanders