Trollheart

Album title: The Polite Force
Artist: Egg
Nationality: English
Label: Deram
Chronology: Second
Grade: B
Tracklisting: A Visit to Newport Hospital/ Contrasong/ Boil/ Long Piece No. 3 Parts 1 - 4
Comments: Bad joke time. Egg cracked pretty easily. Their career was scrambled. They went sunny-side up in 1972. It’s no yolk. All right, I’ll stop. Fact is, Egg had three albums in all but broke up (sorry) after this, their second, in 1972. For whatever reason though they re-formed in 1974 to throw one more into the pan (I know I said I’d stop. I lied) and then called it a day for real. So what effect they had on the prog scene I don’t know, but it might be typified by my initial belief that they were Japanese! Anyway, let’s serve this one up with some soldiers all right I really will stop now. It’s quite a dark opening to “A Visit to Newport Hospital” (Newport in Wales, one assumes) with an ominous ringing guitar and thick bass in a sort of mid-paced march which then breaks into a sprightly organ run like something you might hear on a cruise maybe. Quite nice really if unexpected. Jazzy in its way, then the vocal comes in from Mont Campbell and they’re very good indeed.

Swirling keys set up a really nice melody with some interesting effects, sharp guitar bursting through then some smooth piano and organ, not bad at all. Goes back to the darker, more ominous tone of the opening as it hammers out the ending and into “Contrasong”. I see where the title comes from: it’s that annoying thing they call atonal or something isn’t it? A sort of syncopation in the music and in the lyric. Despite the pretty cool piano line here I really do not like this at all, hard on the ear. Some very flutey sounding keyboard I think it is. Meh. “Boilk” (didn’t they have that on their first album?) opens with the sound of rushing, pouring water, maybe into a bath or down some sort of drain. Weird. Okay, they did have this on the debut album, though it was only a minute long and here it’s a full nine. Sounds like church bells and a synthy keyboard overlay, quite pastoral I must say.

Odd little feedback sounds and what could be a violin, warbling effects and some sort of muted guitar riff maybe. Apparently this also includes a rendition of a Bach piece, but if so I don’t hear or recognise it. Then we’re into the four-part “Long Piece No. 3” with a pretty frenetic start, sounds like organ and guitar with cantering percussion - oh, I see they use a tone generator and something called an “orchestron”, so, you know, whatever. Part 2 has more of a conventional melody to it, very much driven on the organ in a kind of nearly soul way I feel, quite pleasant. It all but stops then after two minutes then comes back in on a shimmering organ and keyboard line (or it could be the other two things, who knows) which gets a little, well, weird. Rises to a crescendo and stops. Again. This time it comes back on piano and organ with some gentle percussion and then back to that nice slow organ melody.

Part 3 opens on fast bright piano and sort of harder percussion, with possible addition of flute, then it gets a little more dramatic and speeds up in tempo, with oh hell I don’t know - flanged guitar maybe? Oh yeah: no vocals since “Contrasong”, nor do I imagine there will be. Jazzy sort of beat taking the melody now and a guitar shimmering in then the piece winds down on some freaky feedback and takes us into the final part, with a bouncy, bubbling organ to take us out.

Favourite track(s): Long Piece No. 3 Part 2
Least favourite track(s): Contrasong, Boilk
Overall impression: I expect there were non-Egg fans who bought this and though “what the hell am I listening to?” I mean, I’ve heard weirder before, but this is up there among them. It’s no surprise to me that Egg fried their career (I promise, that’s the last one) after this and only produced one more album before breaking up. Oh well, you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs. I told you: I’m a liar. That is also a lie. And that.
Personal Rating: 2.0
Legacy Rating: 1.0
Final Rating: 1.5

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Trollheart

Album title: Aqualung
Artist: Jethro Tull
Nationality: English
Label: Chrysalis
Chronology: Fourth
Grade: A
Tracklisting: Aqualung/ Cross-eyed Mary/ Cheap Day Return/ Mother Goose/ Wond’ring Aloud/ Up to Me/ My God/ Hymn No. 32/ Slipstream/ Locomotive Breath/ Wind-up
Comments: Ah yes, my constant battle to understand the attraction of Jethro Tull. It’s not that I don’t think they’re a good band, I just don’t see where their particular brand of folk rock is seen to fit into the overall scheme of the progressive rock movement. So far the albums I’ve heard have not changed my mind on this, though I believe this is a concept album (okay, Anderson says it isn’t) so maybe it’s the one to swing the balance. It’s also their most successful and best-selling and indeed best known, from the distinctive cover.

The title track gets us underway and it’s a kind of psych rock idea with guitar very much to the fore, though I have no doubt that fucking flute will make its entrance before long. Vocal goes into a kind of mono style here, backed only by acoustic guitar and bass as the melody drifts into a sort of slow blues on the back of rather nice piano. Now it picks up tempo and becomes a boogie as the vocal comes back in stereo. I guess you have to give Anderson props for tackling the rampant problem of homeless in 1971 at a time when even now not that many artists bother. Hey, at least the flute stayed out of it. But it can’t stay out forever, and it brings in “Cross-eyed Mary”, again to me a sort of psych/hard rock song with folk elements, but not prog. Meh. Fuck that flute. My god I hate it.

“Cheap Day Return” is just over a minute of acoustic folk, and there’s no other way to describe it. Still waiting for the prog, guys. “Mother Goose” doesn’t do itself any favours by opening with, you guessed it, poxy flute. More acoustic guitar backing it, a laid back little song, quite whimsical and pastoral, then another short song, less than two minutes, again acoustic, again sort of ballad-ish, though this time there’s some nice piano in “Wond’ring Aloud” and even an orchestra. Nice. Slightly more uptempo for “Up to Me”, with more of that thrice-cursed flute and a rocky kind of beat, then there are dark ruminations on religion in “My God”, accompanied by a sombre, ominous melody mostly on guitar. Has a sort of Zep feel to it, this, and given that the boys were recording Led Zeppelin IV in the next studio, well, just sayin’...

Way too much flute in this. Of course, one note on the flute is too much, but here it’s all over the bloody place. God-damn flute solo? Heaven preserve me. Yeah that’s right: Heaven make me into a strawberry jam. Better than listening to this. Some sort of male voice choir too. And this goes on for seven fucking minutes! Actually I changed my mind. It’s not like Led Zep, more like Black Sabbath. Um. Anyway, things get rocking on, er, “Hymn No. 43” but there is still nothing on this vaguely like prog rock to me. The orchestra is back to add a touch of class to “Slipstream”, but sure it only starts and it’s over, and then the big hit from the album (apparently) is “Locomotive Breath”. Yeah, I’ve met some people who could be described like that.

Nice gentle jazzy piano intro but then it kicks off and I do like the way the rhythm does indeed put you in mind of a train hammering along the tracks. I've heard plenty of songs about trains. There are far better ones, but this isn’t too bad. And now we’re at the end, with “Wind-up” bringing proceedings to a close. Sounds like a faint acapella vocal, like one of those old unaccompanied folk songs, or something from Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica. I think I hear music but it’s very faint. Oh, and now it’s coming in. The vocal is still quite low though and a little hard to hear.

Favourite track(s): Wond’ring Aloud/ Slipstream/ Locomotive Breath
Least favourite track(s):
Overall impression: A decent rock album, but again really no way I could consider this as progressive rock. I think I’d also agree that it’s not a concept, or if it is I don’t see it. Some decent tracks, but a lot of filler and I don’t honestly see how this sold so well and became so popular, but what the hell do I know?
Personal Rating: 2.50
Legacy Rating: 5.0
Final Rating: 3.75

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Album title: Tanz der Lemminge
Artist: Amon Duul II
Nationality: German
Label: United Artists
Chronology: Third
Grade: B
Tracklisting: Syntelman’s March of the Roaring Seventies: In the Glass Garden/ Pull Down Your Mask/ Prayer to the Silence/ Telephonecomplex/ Restless Skylight transistor-Child: Landing in a Ditch/ Dehypnotised Toothpaste/ A Short Stop at the Transylvanian Brain Surgery/ Race from here to Your Ears (i) Little Tornadoes (ii) Overheated Tiara (iii) The Flyweighted Five/ Riding on a Cloud/ Paralyzed Paradise/ H.G. wells’ Take Off/ Chamsin Soundtrack: The Marilyn Monroe-Memorial-Church/ Chamsin Soundtrack: Chewing-Gum Telegram/ Stumbling Over Melted Moonlight/ Toxicological Whispering
Comments: Just not my day is it? Not only an Amon Duul II album, but a fucking DOUBLE Amon Duul II album! I’m knackered after just having written out the titles of the tracks! This ain’t going to be fun, if my last experience of this band is anything to go by. All right then, let’s get it over with. God help me. Soft Machine, Tull, Amon Duul II - what did I ever do to deserve this? Well, look, it’s going to be hard to differentiate the tracks, as the Spotify copy lumps them all together as six under various headings as above so I’ll do my best, but I can’t promise much.

If I didn’t know better I would have said that was Bowie singing. It’s not though, it’s Chris Karrer. Very decent voice and doesn’t allow himself to be drowned out by the music while at the same time staying front and centre. Nice Spanish guitar bit there, and the tempo is ticking along nicely. Gone into a sort of loping rhythm now, but not anywhere near as bad as I had feared. Not yet anyway. Some fast congra drumming now attended by a busy bass line with guitar coming up forcefully. This all goes under the banner of “Syntelman’s March of the Roaring Seventies” and no I don’t so please don’t ask. Quite enjoyable I must admit. Good guitar and piano solo to finish. Next up is (deep breath) “Restless Skylight-Transistor-Child”. Yeah. More laid back and relaxed, almost an Indian feel to it and running for a total of just over nineteen minutes, some nice kind of orchestral stuff in here though it becomes a little distorted and dissonant.

Then a big chunky squawking guitar cuts in and the tempo jumps and now we have either some strange vocal effects or maybe they’re sound bites or something. Hell I don’t know. Very freaky man. Slowing down into a kind of eastern rhythm on guitar with a kind of chanted vocal. As I mentioned, these two pieces have been joined together by Spotify but feature several tracks whereas the next one up is one long eighteen-minute “improvisation” (the blood chills!) and goes under the name both of “Chansin Soundtrack” and then “Marilyn Monroe-Memorial-Church”. Right. Expect weirdness. And you won’t be disappointed. Strange, ambient sounds, church organs, whistles, calls, hollow drums, it’s all there. Wind sounds, footsteps probably. There’s almost a drone going on here; it’s sort of hypnotic and relaxing at the same time. Reminds me of the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Piano coming almost out of the ether takes me a little by surprise. It’s not loud, in fact it’s introduced quite gently, but after all the spacey, ambient sounds it’s a different thing to hear and then there are rising tribal drums, which change the perspective of the whole thing. They fade out though and we’re back to ambient with a slice of piano, then a loud drone as the piece heads into its final minute, more drums - quickly gone, back again, gone again, and we’re out.

This leaves us with the odd-titled “Chamsin Soundtrack”. No, not part 2 or II or anything; the very same title as the previous track, but separate from it. It is however for once broken up into its component pieces, and the first of these is “Chewing Gum Telegram”, the shortest of the three at just over two and a half minutes, which has a growling guitar melody, very rocky, some nice soloing over the rhythm guitar, then “Stumbling Over Melted Moonlight” is guitar too but much heavier and almost metal in tone, slow and plodding, kind of menacing. Gets louder as it goes along, almost like something coming nearer, something perhaps scary. The last minute or so of the track is a bass line fading out, then silence, then a reprise of the bass line.

The final part of this suite, and the closer, is called “Toxicological Whispering” and is, oddly, almost as long as both the other two parts together. It again features guitar riffs primarily against a steady drumbeat which more or less stays the same up to the end.

Favourite track(s): Quite surprised to find I really pretty much enjoyed all of this
Least favourite track(s):
Overall impression: A whole lot better than I had thought it would be. Given that a) it’s a double album and runs for about an hour in total and b) I hadn’t exactly been bowled over by Phallus Dei, I’m impressed.
Personal Rating: 4.50
Legacy Rating: 4.0
Final Rating: 4.25

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rubber soul

Honestly, I don't see Jethro Tull as prog rock. For one thing, their songs tend to be within the five minute range. I mean Genesis and Pink Floyd take a whole side for one track for Thomas the Train Engine's sake. Plus, when you get down to it, they're just a damn good hard rock band (up to this point anyway). In any event this is definitely a classic album. Watch out for Thick as a Brick though.

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Trollheart

Album title: In the Land of Grey and Pink
Artist: Caravan
Nationality: English
Label: Deram
Chronology: Third
Grade: A
Tracklisting: Golf Girl/ Winter Wine/ Love to Love You (And Tonight Pigs Will Fly)/ In the Land of Grey and Pink/ Nine Feet Underground (a) Nigel Blows a Tune (b) Love’s a Friend © Make it 76 (d) Dance of the Seven Paper Hankies (e)Hold Grandad by the Nose (f) Honest I did! (g) Dissociation (h) 100% Proof
Comments: Another big name from the Canterbury Scene, by 1971 Caravan were already pretty well established, but this would be their breakthrough album. Not that they ever broke through in any sort of chart/commercial sense, but this is the one fans and progheads remember most fondly. Sounds like trumpet opening “Golf Girl” and, yeah it is actually about golf. Ugh. Reminds me of Beatles style psychedelia honestly. Ok it’s not a trumpet but a trombone - I can never tell the difference. Flute there too, but the song has basically repeated. I think that could be violin? “Winter Wine” is a more pastoral (yeah I know but it tends to crop up a lot with the Canterbury Scene, as far as I can see) tune - oh but then it’s broken into a more boppy rhythm so maybe not.

Mellotron gives this track a least a more progressive rock feel than I have tended to see with many of the albums up to now. Some really nice electric piano I think it is too, quite like this. Keeping the tempo up for “Love to Love You (And Tonight Pigs Will Fly)” with a different vocalist, this time Pye Hastings (really? Pye?) instead of Richard Sinclair. Hastings has a more highly pitched voice which changes the style of the song entirely but I prefer Sinclair. It’s a happy, breezy tune with some not-annoying flute, and leads into the title track, which returns us to our regular singer. A slightly more low-key song that kinds of reminds me of Tull in some ways, like the bass line here, nice tinkling piano too from Richard’s cousin Dave.

The closer is almost twenty-three minutes long, and broken up into eight parts, with “Nine Feet Underground” opening on the longest of these, almost six minutes of “Nigel Blows a Tune”, mostly run on a warbly organ melody, nice and uptempo, sounding very Genesis if I’m honest, and it runs smoothly into “Love’s a Friend”, where we hear Hastings again, the second of only two vocal performances he contributes to the album, and one of only two vocal parts in this suite. There’s a sort of staggering instrumental then for “Make it 76”, keeping the organ front and centre, a short piece which then runs into an even shorter one. “Dance of the Seven Paper Hankies” slows everything down on a sort of stately rhythm, laid back and almost ambient, then a harder section for “Hold Grandad by the Nose” with some sharp, ringing guitar and slowing down again for “Honest I Did!”

The final vocal piece then sees Sinclair return for a nice little relaxed almost ballad in “Dissociation”, which puts me in mind of the Alan Parsons Project, specifically “Silence and I” and “Time”. The organ here is replaced by piano with some flute, then the suite ends on “100% Proof” with a final guitar flurry and the return of the organ, accompanied this time by the piano.

Favourite track(s): Nine Feet Underground
Least favourite track(s):
Overall impression: A huge improvement over the first two albums. To be honest, the first four tracks had me thinking yeah all right but… then once I had listened to “Nine Feet Underground” I realised why this album is so highly rated. A real prog masterpiece.
Personal Rating: 4.5
Legacy Rating: 5.0
Final Rating: 4.75

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Trollheart

Album title: Broken Barricades
Artist: Procol Harum
Nationality: English
Label: Chrysalis
Chronology: Fifth
Grade: B
Tracklisting: Simple Sister/ Broken Barricades/ Memorial Drive/ Luskus Delph/ Power Failure/ Poor Dreamer/ Playmate of the Mouth/ Poor Mohammed
Comments: So far, I’ve yet to hear a bad album from Procol Harum. I suppose something has to give at some point, but I’m hopeful this will be another classic. What I’ve heard so far makes me wonder how come they weren’t more successful, but that can often be down to a weak label or a lack of interest in pushing the band, as well as other factors. This doesn’t seem to have had any luck in the charts either, but since when was that a measure of the quality of a prog rock album? A pretty powerful start on piano and guitar for “Simple Sister”, with quite the jam going on; sounds like there are strings or even an orchestra in there, but I don’t see any credited. Solid opening anyway, a better opener than on their previous album, though that proved to be an aberration.

The title track is a sort of semi-ballad with ringing keyboards and a very progressive rock sound while there’s a more straightforward rock style to “Memorial Drive”, perhaps significant that it’s one of only three written by Robin Trower. Great piano on it. Bit too basic for me though. “Luskus Delph” (what?) is better, much more laid back and gentle with shimmering guitar and piano and I would have to again note that there is some sort of strings accompaniment there; if not, then whoever is playing the keys is doing a hell of a job considering it’s 1971. “Power Failure” then proves me wrong in blaming Trower for the more standard rock fare, as it’s written by Gary Brooker but is pretty unremarkable.

Trower’s next contribution, ironically, is more prog than the last one, with a swirly atmospheric sound and rising almost eastern guitar. The vocal on “Poor Dreamer” is almost spoken in parts, very slow and laconic, far superior to the previous track. So far this album is turning out to be a mixed bag, some really good songs with some really not so good. This is really good. So is “Playmate of the Mouth” (I see what they did there) which has a semi-blues feel to it that reminds me of early Billy Joel. Some really cutting guitar from Trower on this. The final track would have their studio bombed were it released today, but back in 1971 you could say the “m” word without having a horde of crazies descend upon you shouting “Allah Ackbar!” (It’s a trap!) and as it happens “Poor Mohammed”, featuring the final - and I mean final; he left after this album - vocal performance of Trower is another annoyingly ordinary rock track, which kind of underlines the problem with this album. It’s just too inconsistent.

Favourite track(s): Simple Sister, Broken Barricades, Luskus Delph, Playmate of the Mouth, Poor Dreamer
Least favourite track(s): Memorial Drive, Power Failure, Poor Mohammed
Overall impression: It’s probably the weakest and most unbalanced PH album I’ve heard to date. It struggles towards greatness but falls short due to too many meh songs. Maybe now that Trower has fucked off the next one will be better, but this is a pretty big disappointment.
Personal Rating: 2.50
Legacy Rating: 3.0
Final Rating: 2.75

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Album title: Tarkus
Artist: Emerson, Lake and Palmer (ELP)
Nationality: English
Label: Island
Chronology: Second
Grade: A
Tracklisting: Tarkus (i) Eruption (iii) Stones of Years (iii) Iconoclast (iv) Mass (v) Manticore (vi) Battlefield (vii) Aquatarkus/ Jeremy Bender/ Bitches Crystal/ The Only Way (Hymn)/ Infinite Space (Conclusion)/ A Time and a Place/ Are You Ready, Eddy?
Comments: This was and is the only ELP album I own, and the only one other than their debut that I have heard. I wonder if my initial impression of the band has changed since I listened to this, way back in the late seventies/early eighties? In typical ELP fashion, the first “side” is taken up by a suite, which also bears the album’s title, and this is broken into seven parts, but again Spotify decides that should all be one track and does not separate the tracks, so you know, work it out if you know the album.

Slow fade in on I guess keys or feedback guitar but it’s not long before Keith is taking charge with a boppy organ solo, very fast and frenetic with some nice arpeggios, the gong which would become synonymous with the band sounding for the first time here, but a bit pointless as the piece has only begun and it runs for just over twenty minutes. To my mind, gongs are usually employed right at the end of songs or pieces of music. The first vocal from Greg Lake comes in what I assume is then “Stones of Years”, with an almost “Popcorn”-like arpeggio on what sounds like a xylophone. Carl Palmer gets all tribal as Emerson hammers away at the keys in what may or may not be “Iconoclast”, bopping along nicely, then Lake comes in with a Beatles-like guitar riff and more vocals. Maybe this is still “Stones of Years”. Dunno. Damn Spotify. Odd phased effect on Lake’s voice.

Yeah. Completely lost any possibility of knowing where I am in this piece, but we’re fifteen minutes in now and there’s some really nice guitar from Lake and kind of bell-style piano or maybe even percussion? Hard to say. I would hazard this is maybe “Battlefield”, as it has a kind of slow marching feel to it. The lyric kind of backs that up, so that would mean the last part now is “Aquatarkus”, as the fuzz guitar kicks in and the drumbeat becomes more kind of trotting along. Gong and more heavy keyboard arpeggios as we approach the end, with added gong. And illustrating once more the band’s love of classical music, it ends with the final notes from Holst’s “Mars, the Bringer of War.” Nice.

I guess in ways this is where it began to unravel for me. After a pretty powerful prog epic with which I had no problems we’re subjected to a really annoying almost music-hall ditty called “Jeremy Bender”, which for my money is a bit of a rip-off of Floyd’s “Arnold Layne”, then “Bitches Crystal” is a little better, though not a lot. At least it has more of the prog rock about it than the previous song, though that would be extremely easy to achieve. Great piano solo from Emerson, and then a very powerful and grand keyboard intro to “The Only Way (Hymn)” with the expected church organ. More classical nods with excerpts from Fugues by Bach, nice vocal from Lake too. “Infinite Space (Conclusion)” is a short piano and bass instrumental and then for me the album ends on “A Time and a Place” with a pretty manic - and I would have to say poor - vocal from Lake, and the usual keyboard histrionics from Emerson.

See, apparently the actual closer, “Are You Ready, Eddy?” was the band blowing off steam, celebrating finishing the album, and that’s fine, as far as it goes, but you know, do it on your own time guy. Don’t add this crap onto the end of a prog rock album; it just jarred so much with me that even now as I review the album I can’t listen to it. A fifties-style rock and roll throwaway song that has nothing to do with anything (who the blue jumping fuck is Eddy?) it just ruins the ending of the album for me. No, I’m not ready. Not ready for this.

Favourite track(s): Again, nothing really impressed me
Least favourite track(s): Need I say? Are You Ready, Eddy?
Overall impression: Meh. I didn’t like it the first time and I don’t like it the second time I’ve heard it. And that’s as much as I’ve heard, or am likely ever to hear this album. I can recognise its merit and its place in prog rock history, but it does nothing for me. I think Tarkus on the cover is very cute, but that’s about it.
Personal Rating: 2.0
Legacy Rating: 5.0
Final Rating: 3.5

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Album title: Indelibly Stamped
Artist: Supertramp
Nationality: English
Label: A&M
Chronology: Second
Grade: C
Tracklisting: Your Poppa Don’t Mind/ Travelled/ Rosie Had Everything Planned/ Remember/ Forever/ Potter/ Coming Home to See You/ Times Have Changed/ Friend in Need/ Aries
Comments: Some reviewers state this was an improvement on Supertramp’s debut, but I disagree. I feel it was a step backwards, away from the - admittedly mostly folk-oriented - progressive direction the debut was headed, if by a circuitous route, and back to the style of more bluesy, rock and roll music that would disappear entirely from their sound after this album. There’s very little of the polished production that Supertramp would come to be associated with, no hit singles, hardly any catchy tunes, and in general it seems just a confused mess, with no real direction. Even Hodgson has called it a “floundering” album, more or less written in order to save their careers.

It’s a completely different album. If Supertramp was a couple of guys sitting quietly in their gardens playing acoustic guitar and piano, Indelibly Stamped is a brass band marching past with shouting drunks in front. It’s not a terrible album, but it really isn’t very good. It has a few decent tracks, as we will see, but on the strength of this Supertramp were lucky to make it through to their third, breakthrough album. It opens on a big boogie blues rocker, “Your Poppa Don’t Mind” for just a moment betraying the possibility that it might be the continuation of the previous album with a twinkling piano, but then it becomes more Status Quo than anything else, bouncing along and rocking hard. It’s not a bad track by any means, but it’s no more Supertramp than “Smoke on the Water” is. It’s almost like listening to a different band, though it does change radically for the next track.

“Travelled” is one of only three tracks on which Roger Hodgson takes the vocal, and with its soft flute intro fading in, the gentle acoustic guitar and of course the voice that would become recognised as being that of Supertramp, for a moment it’s like we’ve stepped back in time a year. Yes, the debut was very folk-influenced, a little too gentle at times, but its style owed more to prog than most of the rest of this album does. “Travelled” does kick up its tempo, so it’s no “Shadow Song” or “Aubade” but it’s still welcome among all the mostly blues rock of this follow-up. It’s also relatively catchy, something Hodgson and Davies would perfect the formula for a few years later as they began to take the charts by storm. Right now it’s just a nice sort of peek back to the past with a taste of the future to come.

And in fairness the quality stays quite high with another Hodgson-voiced - and written - song, one of the better ones on the album. With a sort of swinging waltzy country beat, “Rosie Had Everything Planned” is the story of a woman who believes her husband is going to cheat on her and shoots him, but it turns out to have been a vicious and untrue rumour. With strong acoustic guitar and thumping, steady percussion, Hodgson’s voice rising over it all in the persona of the narrator of the tale, it’s an example of what Supertramp could do when they put their minds to it. The addition of accordion is inspired, as is the beautiful piano outro.

After that it’s a sax-heavy rock piece as we return to the blues with the ragged voice of Rick Davies in “Remember”. I’d rather forget. Actually sounds like the future echo of something that might have emerged on Some Things Never Change, long after Roger had departed and Rick could have things his own way. It does afford Dave Winthrop the chance to break loose with his brass and there’s some nice harmonica from Davies, but it’s a pretty basic rock song, and “Forever”, while it does contain the bones of what would become great and remembered Supertramp ballads, has too much of the fifties soft rock about it to satisfy me. It’s good to hear the Fender Rhodes being used for the first time though. Okay, might be Wurlitzer, as it says here. If you’re familiar with Supertramp you’ll know the sound I mean though.

Things get rockier and uglier with “Potter”, and the only vocal performance by Winthrop, who would leave the band after this album, does not help. Davies may have a gruff, rasping voice compared to the mellow, soulful, almost feminine at times lilt of Hodgson, but Winthrop is in a league all of his own. And that’s not a compliment. Hey, at least it’s a short song. Things begin a slight upswing with “Coming Home to See You”, which again betrays a little of that sound that will be recognisable at the Supertramp sound, with Davies back on the Wurlitzer and behind the mike. Starts off slow but then picks up in a sort of hoe-down style, gets the feet tapping and then goes into a passable imitation of a racing train as the organ takes the tune in a sprightly dance attended by harmonica. Good fun.

I also like “Times Have Changed”, which has a slow blues beat and again reminds me of some of the later material post-Hodgson. Again it’s Davies on the vocal but this song kind of suits his voice I think. I’m not so fond of “Friend in Need”, though the piano is nice and bouncy, and it’s short too which helps. That leaves the longest track on the album, nearly seven and a half minutes of “Aries” which, despite Roger Hodgson being back on the vocals is bloody awful. Some sort of hippy shit with flutes (god how I hate flutes! I may have mentioned...) and a kind of samba beat or something, definitely like one of the weaker tracks off the debut.

It’s a crime, I tells ya!

Favourite track(s): Travelled, Rosie Had Everything Planned, Forever, Coming Home to See You/ Times Have Changed
Least favourite track(s): Potter/ Remember/ Aries
Overall impression: It’s almost a miracle that Supertramp survived this. I mean, the first album, though I love it, sunk without a trace, as did this. There’s just zero direction on this, whereas at least on the debut they were going for a sort of folk-influenced semi-prog idea. Here it’s just a mess. And yet, though it took them three more years, they would come back with a classic album that would not only crystallise their style, but turn them into genuine stars.
Personal Rating: 2.0
Legacy Rating: 1.0
Final Rating: 1.5

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Album title: Ash Ra Tempel
Artist: Ash Ra Tempel
Nationality: German
Label: Ohr
Chronology: Debut
Grade: A
Tracklisting: Amboss/ Traummaschine
Comments: And back to Krautrock we go. This one has only two tracks, but one is nearly twenty minutes and the other over twenty-five. Very interestingly, I see there’s no place for keyboards here, though something called “electronics” is used; could be a very early version of things like sound processors and Fairlights? I see vocals too, though I had expected this would be all instrumental, but as I did expect it’s quite ambient - at the beginning anyway - and takes some time to even rise to the level of audibility. Kind of a drone when it gets going? Very spacey, very atmospheric, possibly building to something. Think I hear guitar now for the first time and we’re about six minutes in to “Amboss”. Impressive stuff.

Percussion also coming up more forcefully now; I guess the opening section was that electronics thing they were referring to. I must admit, as much as I feared/did not look forward to listening to this genre, I’m quite enjoying this. Wonder if I should give Sleep another shot at some point? Sounds almost like some sort of animal noise, like monkeys or birds or something, then it all but stops and comes up on a warbly - well I would have said keyboard line but there appear not to be any so I guess it’s electronics - and then wavering guitar rising and falling with absolutely no percussion at all. Now the percussion comes back in and it’s mostly guitar accompanying it as it heads into the sixteenth minute.

Track two, “Traummaschine” (which I’m informed means “dream machine”) is more ethereal, with so far not any guitar (or none I can hear) and a very sort of celestial sound, like something out of a documentary on space maybe. Good interplay between the percussion and the guitar later, with the electronics holding court over everything.

Favourite track(s): Well there were only two and I liked both
Least favourite track(s):
Overall impression: Again, much more pleasant than I had expected. Perhaps I will be able to get into this Krautrock thing. It does seem to have been an early version of post-rock merged with ambient music.
Personal Rating: 4.5
Legacy Rating: 4.0
Final Rating: 4.25

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Album title: Acquiring the Taste
Artist: Gentle Giant
Nationality: English
Label: Vertigo
Chronology: Second
Grade: B
Tracklisting: Pantagruel’s Nativity/ Edge of Twilight/ The House, the Street, the Room/ Acquiring the Taste/ Wreck/ The Moon is Down/ Black Cat/ Plain Truth
Comments: A good title for this album, as this is something which, despite several tries, I have never managed with regard to Gentle Giant. This will be the second time I’ll have heard this album, as I spoke about it in the ProGenitors feature for 1970. Gentle Giant seem to have been the perennial runners-up, never quite making it big while nevertheless acquiring (sorry) a pretty strong fanbase. Their lack of commercial success and crossover might have had something to do with titling their songs the likes of “Pantagruel’s Nativity”. Right. Wait, what? Yeah. The sax and flute add a nice gentle feel to the opener, though I would have to say Kerry Minnear’s voice here is a few points too high on the register, making him sound like a soprano or something.

The song however doesn’t make any real impression on me, and I’ve forgotten it already. “Edge of Twilight” is slower, kind of sombre, with some nice choral effects and some Spanish guitar I think. Oh, and with a drum solo at the end. Hooray. The vocal changes to allow Derek Shulman to sing on “The House, the Street, the Room”, and I can’t decide if he’s better, worse or the same. I encounter this problem whenever I listen to Gentle Giant; I don’t care enough about their songs to really concentrate on or hear them, and nothing stands out to me. There’s a lot of smartarse farting around with various instruments here, but it really comes across as nothing more than smartarse farting around with various instruments in order to show how sophisticated and different they are, and for me it doesn’t work. There is a good guitar solo here backed by a powerful organ.

Next we have an instrumental which sounds like the theme to some kid’s programme about fairy stories or something, followed by “Wreck”, which is beyond annoying, just so repetitive, then “The Moon is Down” has at least some nice close-harmony vocals, but sounds like something out of a movie soundtrack. Probably the best (!) so far though. There’s no way I’m going to remember any of these songs later. “Black Cat” has some lovely orchestral music in it (though I don’t see an orchestra credited: these guys use so many instruments it could be anything I guess) with a low vocal and a low-key kind of approach that, well, kind of goes nowhere. And we close on “Plain Truth”, which I’m concerned to see runs for over seven minutes. Opens with what I think is a harmonica solo then a relatively decent rocker develops: maybe they’ve saved the best for last? Wouldn’t be hard. Yeah well maybe not.


Favourite track(s): Honestly did not like anything here. Well, to be more accurate, it went in one ear and out the other
Least favourite track(s):
Overall impression: Meh. Can’t see at the moment how these guys are so well regarded in the prog scene. I’m not surprised they were never successful. Don’t think I’ll ever (you know I have to say it, now come on!) acquire the taste.
Personal Rating: 1.0
Legacy Rating: 2.0
Final Rating: 1.5

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018