Notes

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The 1998 Castle Communications reissue (ESM 647) of the only album by the progressive band as a quartet runs circles around every other version of this album on CD, including the material in the 1995 Charly Records box, which was pretty good. Otherwise, the music is a flawed but valiant effort at progressive-type art-rock, a little too heavily influenced by spaced-out, druggy psychedelia and suffering severely from the lack of a real singer in the ranks of the band. Keith Emerson's organ and piano flourishes never sounded crisper, and Davy O'List's Hendrix-ish guitar is in sharp relief as well. Mostly, though, this record still suffers from the fact that the players had virtually no experience in a recording studio, and seem uncomfortable working without an audience in front of them.

This is one loud, crazy record. O'List went full-out to imitate Hendrix, but didn't have the chops, of course. It's still interesting to listen to him flail about and abuse his instrument ("Bonnie K"). Emerson was the most technically gifted keyboard player of the 60's, and occasionally he dishes out a warp-speed riff that makes your head spin ("Rondo"). Intent upon out-Peppering and out-Experiencing their competitors, the band comes up with one eerie-to-maniacal, effect-laden three-minute pop song after another ("Flower King Of Flies"; "Tantalising Maggie"; "Cry Of Eugene"). It's too bad their lead vocalist was so technically limited that his best performance is an ominous, over-amplified, whispered rant ("Dawn").