Unknown Soldier

The Album
After the impressive Neverneverland album, the Pink Fairies had a big dip in quality with the uninspired second set What a Bunch of Sweeties, which despite some great songs like “Marilyn” generally saw the band punching well below their weight in terms of what they were capable of, especially since the album had far too many basic rock jams for a band on their calibre. Their third album Kings of Oblivion redressed that dip and gave us in many ways their most concise album yet and imo their best! Canadian Paul Rudolph who had managed the vocals on What a Bunch of Sweeties, after taking over solely from Twink on their debut album, had now departed from the band for pastures new. His replacement on guitar and vocals was Larry Willis, who had previously had stints with both Blodwyn Pig and a space-rocky UFO. He would of course go on to be part of the early Motorhead set-up after his brief but memorable stint with the Pink Fairies. As said on an earlier entry, the Pink Fairies were essentially a psychedelic band centred around a stripped down rock ‘n’ roll sound. But the band’s pure guitar tones and riffing made the band a delight at times to any ‘heavy music fan’ out there and Kings of Oblivion doesn’t come up shy on that account.

As for the songs, it has probably the band’s most endearing songs to date and kicks-off with the staunch “City Kids” full of dynamic riffing and with an upbeat feel throughout. Then there are songs like “When’s the Fun Begin?” which sounds years ahead of its time and here even instrumentals like “Raceway” sound spot on without being overly long, and the impressive “Street Urchin” at seven minutes running time closes the album. But it’s the album’s classic cut the superbly titled “I Wish I Was a Girl” that sells the album, with its sublime guitar lines, riffing and gruffy rock vocals that cement this song as a classic of its era but it’s the later spiralling dynamics, that actually turn this song into something of a masterpiece, this is a song to be missed at the listener’s peril! The Pink Fairies in many ways, were one of those bands that really suffered from a chopping and changing line-up and overall direction, a factor that seemed to plague a lot of band’s that have been reviewed on these pages. Had the Pink Fairies got their act together, hell knows what more they could have achieved, but perhaps their true calling was to be a transitory band for its members and nothing more. As a footnote, the Youtube entrys for this album seem a bit thin on the ground and therefore some of the first choices are not represented here.

Larry Willis- Guitar/Vocals
Duncan Sanderson-Bass
Russell Hunter- Drums

Production- David Hitchcock

__________________
Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History