PSYCH COLLECTOR
Eagle-eyed readers of this esteemed magazine will have noticed how often the psych columnist, at your humble service, likes to sing the praises of BARDO POND. That’s not going to stop anytime soon. So you might as well get onboard with the far-out Philadelphian free-rockers or else, erm, go away and listen to The Best Of Tom Grennan. You square! Peel Sessions (★★★★ Fire) does what it says on the tobacco tin, compiling trips to Maida Vale in 2001 and 2004. The BBC studio’s engineers did a fine job of bottling the band’s thick and dizzying sonic gloop. If the archives are correct, Slip Away was also recorded for the first session but for reasons possibly related to groove-space it doesn’t appear on this record. Peel Sessions loses one star for that reason alone.
Lance Barresi’s Brown Acid compilations crop up often enough in these pages too. On the 13th instalment of rare rawk madness there appeared a song by MASTER DANSE which was described, by yours truly, as “a slow and bluesy scream of drugaddled pain”. Freshly unearthed is an album’s worth of live studio recordings from 1974, the one year this power trio existed. Sadly, Feelin Dead
(★★ Ridingeasy) doesn’t deliver on the promise of its previously heard title track. IOU is an enjoyable Blue Cheer-y stomp and Train To Love has an appropriately locomotive pulse. Much of the material feels undercooked or unexceptional, with Givin’ In basically descending into mucking about. The vocalist, meanwhile, is on a mission to sing the word “baby” more often than Robert Plant. Another song is called En Route To Fame. They weren’t.
…Unlike this next act! Following the 1974 release of Secret Treaties (★★★★ Music On Vinyl) by BLUE ÖYSTER CULT, readers of Melody Maker voted it the Top Rock Album Of All Time. And it didn’t even have (Don’t Fear) The Reaper on it! (That would appear on its follow-up.) BÖC’S Eric Bloom once said Secret Treaties was his favourite album of theirs. “I was the only one who was single,” he added, “so I did a lot of writing on it.” Even if it isn’t really man’s greatest achievement, Secret Treaties still bloody rocks in its lumbering, organheavy, proto-metal, post-60s cynically outlooked way. Give yourself another pat on the back, Mr Bloom.
Jeff Beck is gone but his music will live on, possibly even after all the other baby boomers have passed away. After first touring as the latest incarnation of The Jeff Beck Group, BECK, BOGERT & APPICE rebranded as a surnamed superband. The American rhythm section of this power trio had played together in Vanilla Fudge and Cactus. Sole studio album, 1973’s Beck, Bogert & Appice (★★★★ Music On Vinyl), was received frostily by critics who unfavourably compared them to Cream. Also noted was the reliance on cover versions, which take up half the album. At least one reviewer claimed it was the worst band Beck had ever been in. That’ll be because the album tends to foreground sheer heft over complex sophistication, something that was still frowned upon at the time but has come to be appreciated with changing perceptions of heavy music. BBA get a free pass for being one of the countless bands to perform a rocked-up version of Superstition by Stevie Wonder, because they were among the first to think of it.
Tony Mcphee broke up THE GROUNDHOGS in 1974 but was persuaded to revive the group with different personnel the following year. They bashed out two LPS in 1976, neither of which has been repressed until now. The first, Crosscut Saw (★★★★ Fire), is believed to capture an act that was past its peak and it didn’t fare well come the avalanche of punk. While it may not be Mcphee’s finest work, it stands up rather well as eight phat wodges of off-kilter blues rock with hooks galore and plenty of tasteful sonic surprises. As with Beck, Bogert & Appice, it deserves a second chance. About time its sequel, Black Diamond, got a rerelease, too.
CIRCLES AROUND THE SUN perch at the kitschier end of the kaleidoscopic spectrum and if anything they’re only getting slicker. With elements of disco, easy listening and light funk drifting through their fourth studio album, Language (★★★ Megaforce) recalls the likes of Trees Speak or perhaps Beak> without the vocals, if that floats your spaceship. Apparently, Hollywood has got a remake of Barbarella in the works. Tinseltown could do a lot worse than using this LP as a soundtrack to the saucy flick.
On live album Secret Stratosphere (★★★★★
Merge) by WILLIAM TYLER & THE IMPOSSIBLE TRUTH the deft guitarist is accompanied by Jack Lawrence, Brian Kotzur and Luke Schneider.
And boy can they weave glistening instrumentals which are gripping and soothing in equal measure. Tyler’s solo album compositions are fleshed out, beefed up, adapted or expanded, in one case by segueing surprisingly into a space-rocking version of Kraftwerk’s Radioactivity. “That was our favourite Blue Öyster Cult song,” quips William. Don’t remember hearing it on Secret Treaties.