THE BAND Northern Lights-Southern Cross (Capitol)

A recent nation-wide telephone poll on Northern Lights-Southern Cross, the Band's first collection of new songs in four years, has produced a solid consensus. All respondents agree that the new album is the Band's best since Stage Fright, and probably their best since The Band. Representative comments include, "1 can't stop playing it," "My favorite song changes every time T hear it," "This is the way a Band record is supposed to sound," and "What's the last verse of 'Acadian Driftwood' about, anyway?" *

This consensus, however, includes only those who have listened to the record, and if the Billboard charts, which notch NL-SC in the

middle fifties after nearly a month in the stores, are any indication, said consensus excludes numerous people who heretofore found great pleasure in the Band's offerings, and who are now risking serious cultural deprivation for no good reason, This, to me at any rate, is understandable; l came late to the NL-SC consensus myself. When 1 first heard