Ian & Sylvia had been making their country leanings more pronounced in their recordings a year or two prior to
Full Circle. On
Full Circle itself, they moved deeper into country and country-rock, the backup players including such stellar Nashville sidemen as
Pete Drake, Ken Buttrey,
Norbert Putnam, and Bill Purcell. At the same time, unfortunately, it continued the decline (if a very slow one) from their mid-'60s peak, due to the combination of somewhat weaker material and the frequent unsuitability of full-band arrangements to the duo's strengths. For all that, there are fitfully decent items here, showing the pair at least willing to take some chances with longer, more complex songs and some string and choir arrangements.
Sylvia Fricker's "Woman's World" is a standout, and not at all typical of the rest of the LP, sounding rather like
Joni Mitchell's early work in its feminist perspective and sensitive piano accompaniment, with no vocal contributions from
Ian Tyson. Among the better remaining tracks are
Ian Tyson's lengthy character study "Stories He'd Tell," the jaunty country-folk of "Please Think," and "Mr. Spoons," the last of which, oddly, the duo had released (in a different version) on their Lovin' Sound LP just a year earlier. ~ Richie Unterberger