Bloodrock: Whirlwind Tongues

BLOODROCK: WHIRLWIND TONGUES (1974)

1) It's Gonna Be Love; 2) Sunday Song; 3) Parallax; 4) Voices; 5) Eleanor Rigby; 6) Stilled By Whirlwind; 7) Guess What I Am; 8) Lady Of Love; 9) Jungle.

I am going against the grain here, including my own old assessment of this album, but I do be­lieve now that Whirlwind Tongues is an ever so slight improvement over Passage where song­writing and impartial self-assessment of the band's abilities are concerned. Not that it matters in the slightest: the Ham-led Bloodrock at their absolute best can only present sufficient interest for historians of the «pretentious pop music scene» in the post-Beatles, pre-punk era, and maybe for a small group of strange people who'd probably scare me shitless if they were to present themselves in person. But still, just for justice' sake: Whirlwind Tongues is weak, but not awful.

The major difference is that this time around, they are not so openly emulating their betters — they still have a serious problem with trying to find their own style, but something is beginning to materialize. Perhaps a sort of folk-rock sound in the vein of contemporary Traffic, but gentler and more sentimental (a.k.a. «sissy»). With an occasional surprise or two, and some basic diversity. No eight-minute epics with bad Moog solos (okay, some bad Moog solos are inevitable, but we could live with these). Mostly boring, sometimes too cute for their own good, but give them a break — they are really trying.

I mean, it must have taken some brainwork to take ʽEleanor Rigbyʼ, speed it up, add flutes, and make it rock, if only ever so softly, right? I must admit that it is a more inventive recasting of the song than Aretha Franklin's, for instance — I much prefer my ʽEleanor Rigbyʼ in a steady tempo, tight, focused, and with flutes than see it turned into a rather chaotic R&B number. Not that the world really needs either of these, but this novelty approach is not at all repugnant. Other than the singer getting a bit too carried away (should have kept it modestly trimmed, without any extra yeah yeah yeahs, I think), it's actually fun.

Other than that, ʽIt's Gonna Be Loveʼ is a solemn soft-rock anthem that suffers from the absence of authentic Crosby, Stills & Nash harmonies (and the presence of one of those corny Moog solos); ʽSunday Songʼ is loungey vaudeville that tries to mix sentimentality with humor; ʽParal­laxʼ is like Blind Faith's ʽDo What You Likeʼ with a Jethro Tull-style flute part thrown in; ʽVoicesʼ speeds along with good confidence and has the album's best riff, which would have been even better if they knew it themselves and got it rid of the distracting «flanging» effects; ʽStilled By Whirlwindʼ is too preachy, too long, has too many instances of the word "propaganda" and em­barrassing falsetto harmonies, but is okay otherwise; ʽGuess What I Amʼ is an awful piano ballad that shows Ham's lack of vocal power in all its anti-glory as the man desperately tries to prove that he can do it all, from tenor to falsetto; ʽLady Of Loveʼ is a simplistic serenade, not particularly redeemed by the heavy use of saxes blended into its primitive keyboard riff; and ʽJungleʼ is the band's attempt at doing something darker and weirder, partially successful, as they populate the minimalistic skeleton with «jungle noises».

Whew, at least there was some incentive to briefly namedrop all the songs on the album. That does not mean it merits a thumbs up, but it does mean there was enough diversity and creativity to evade any accusations of idleness and laziness. No talent, sure, but any idiot with talent can be creative — now creativity without talent, that's gotta count for something! In a way, it almost makes me feel sorry that the band finally called it a day soon afterwards — not sorry enough, though, to hunt for one more final LP, recorded in 1975, but shelved and not released officially until 2000 (as part of the rare 2-CD Triptych edition that combines both Ham-era albums with nine more songs, allegedly joined under the working title Unspoken Words).

Although, let us not exaggerate. Bloodrock were not all that outstanding in their prime, merely worth getting to know if you are a sucker for 1970 — and whichever direction Ham could take the survivors in the mid-Seventies would probably be a dead end, so I guess it's all for the better that we did not get to see the Bloodrock Disco Album, not to mention the Bloodrock Hair Metal Comeback, or be subjected to the «Bloodrock Dig Their New Indie Label So Much They Have Decided To Release Two New Albums Each Year For The Sake Of Their Three Fans» reality show. Having run out of blood (and out of rock) back in 1972, at best, they could be opening shows for the likes of Styx, and how much more embarrassment could this world stand?

Bloodrock: Passage

BLOODROCK: PASSAGE (1972)

1) Help Is On The Way; 2) Scottsman; 3) Juice; 4) The Power; 5) Life Blood; 6) Days And Nights; 7) Lost Fame; 8) Thank You Daniel Ellsberg; 9) Fantasy.

More accurately, I think the album's real title is Bloodrock Passage, since what we see on the cover is the image of a ship passing between what might look like two bloody rocks. In that case, the name of the band is either Zero, which happens to coincide with the number of positive emo­tions I get from listening to the album, or Led Zeppelin. In any case, this band is definitely not Bloodrock, an early 1970s Texan rock outfit that produced such grumbly monsters as Bloodrock, Bloodrock 2, Bloodrock 3, Bloodrock USA, Bloodrock Live, and that great lost masterpiece, Bloodrock Play The Entire Engelbert Humperdinck Catalog Just To Prove That Nobody Ever Pigeonholes A Real Texan.

What this new band is, having just lost Jim Rutledge and Lee Pickens, i.e. the only half-decent reasons one ever listens to a Bloodrock album, is a progressive rock band with a fixation on folk, classical, and jazz influences. The new singer guy... well, imagine the Rolling Stones losing both Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and replacing them with, say, Woolly Wolstenholme from Barclay James Harvest, because, I mean, who else do you turn to when you are really in such a desperate need to salvage the Rolling Stones brand? Except you have to downscale the volume a bit: Warren Ham is really no Woolly when it comes to talent. He is a competent singer, as well as saxophone and flute player, but all he really knew at that point was how to listen to others — Jethro Tull, King Crimson, ELP — and imitate them. Granted, this was better than what followed: in the early 1980s, Ham would be touring with Kansas, then he would go on to join Kerry Liv­gren's new Christian rock band AD as lead singer, and, finally, become a Christian rock solo per­former in his own limited right.

Of course, condemning an album like Passage just because «it ain't real Bloodrock» is silly. Passage is a very bad record not because it dares to replace the heavy riffs, gloomy lyrics, and scorching solos of classic Bloodrock with more formally complex progressive rock escapades, flute solos, and synthesizer-led jams, but simply because all of this music happens to be very, very boring. The songs, mostly co-written with Ham and the band's old keyboard player Stephen Hill, all seem like pale, limp shadows of their betters, without a shred of individual vision and nowhere near close to their general energy level. In fact, I'd rather have preferred them to be awfully distasteful and primitive, like Uriah Heep — as such, they are not even any use as a pun­ching bag. Just your basic bland, instantly forgettable crap.

Just a couple of quick examples will suffice. ʽScottsmanʼ milks the same territory as Jethro Tull's Elizabethan marches — in fact, its main flute part echoes the "I've come down from the upper class..." part of the freshly released ʽThick As A Brickʼ, which could hardly be a coincidence. But there is no sharp Martin Barre guitar accompaniment to give it teeth, nor does Ham's attempt at «heroic» singing (for which his voice is too weak anyway) have any stun power — second-hand copying at its most blatant. Further on down the line, ʽDays And Nightsʼ is stretched to eight minutes in order to incorporate a lengthy jam section, a large part of which is driven by a brass riff expressly taken from King Crimson's ʽ21st Century Schizoid Manʼ. Take it, but don't waste it — all it does is just hang there while the keyboard player noodles for several minutes around it with one of about eighty billion organ solos that were recorded in 1972 and all sounded the same (imitating either Emerson or Wakeman).

It gets worse, because Ham, Hill, and the rest of Hoodrock insist on being diverse and matching their progressive rock «skills» with time-honored Americana, so they also massacre funk (the one minute long introduction to ʽLost Fameʼ, after which it becomes an anthem to the power of the Mighty Moog), blues (ʽThank You, Daniel Ellsbergʼ, which has to be one of the lamest fusions of B. B. King with contemporary American politics that I've ever heard), and swamp rock (ʽThe Powerʼ). In conjunction with the original stiffness and lumpiness of the band's rhythm section, Ham's march-on-Christian-soldiers vocalizing and Hill's somnambulant keyboard tinkering re­duce each and every one of these genres to the nightmarish question of «does humanity actually need to listen to music, anyway?»

It is all so mind-numbing that I wouldn't even want to recommend the album to fans of Kansas — as much as I hate the band, at least it had its own silly schtick sort of worked out from the very beginning; Passage is just a meandering mess with no reason whatsoever to exist. Amazingly, the album almost managed to grope its way into the Top 100 — not so wonderous, perhaps, given the fact that Thick As A Brick had made it all the way to the top that very year, but at least, not too many people were tricked into a "hey, it's got flute on it, it's just like those groovy Jethro Tull guys!" mindset, so that's okay, and there is no need to accompany the thumbs down with any extra hatred. They pretty much got what they deserved, right on the spot.

Bloodrock: Bloodrock Live

BLOODROCK: BLOODROCK LIVE (1972)

1) Intro; 2) Castle Of Thoughts; 3) Breach Of Lease; 4) Lucky In The Morning; 5) Kool Aid Kids; 6) DOA; 7) You Gotta Roll; 8) Cheater; 9) Jessica; 10) Gotta Find A Way.

Quite superfluous, really. When it comes to hard-rocking bands playing live, you generally expect them to pull all the stops that haven't already been pulled in the studio, but this particular live album shows there was fairly little left to pull. So little, in fact, that Jim Rutledge even went all the way to dishonor the band by including two studio tracks, slightly remixed and overlaid with fake applause (ʽYou Gotta Rollʼ and ʽCheaterʼ), because, apparently, there was not enough material for a proper double live album. Considering that the final recording still only lasts for barely over an hour, they could have easily gone with a single long LP instead of two short-run­ning ones instead — but double (and triple) live albums being all the rage circa 1972, Bloodrock preferred a different shade of shame. Come to think of it, maybe they thought that by mid-1972, nobody would remember how the old tunes went anyway.

The actual live recordings cover the band's first three albums (U.S.A. is not included at all, pro­bably because the live shows were played before its release) and, for the most part, are under­whelming. The mix is good enough, and the band gels together fairly well, but the songs are played in rather strict accordance with the studio originals, small minutiae notwithstanding, and even if the setlist is consistently strong (with the possible exception of ʽLucky In The Morningʼ, although that song, with its arena flavor and hymnal pretense, is clearly a natural candidate for a live highlight), the band does virtually nothing to expand on the songs' potential.

The only exception is an extended version of ʽGotta Find A Wayʼ, mainly through the addition of some unimpressive jamming and organ soloing and a very shaky, faux-energetic bit of audience participation (which, among other things, comprises Jim Rutledge trying to scat in between the collective clamoring — not a very harmonious activity). In the end, that makes the song worse than it used to be, while everything else is just about the same. And you know there's something deeply not right with a hard rock band if it simply replicates its hard rock sound on stage.

I mean, even AC/DC tried to rip it up harder than in the studio — not an easy task, but occasionally, they did manage. Bloodrock, on the contrary, do not even try. Maybe it is because they thought of themselves as an «art» band rather than just rock'n'rollers, but, well, they thought wrong: these songs need to be crispy and crunchy — simply reproducing all the lumpy slowness of ʽBreach Of Leaseʼ and ʽD.O.A.ʼ the way it used to be does not work. I cannot give the album a thumbs down, since the setlist saves it fairly well — in fact, feel free to use it as an introduction to the basic Bloodrock sound if you wish — but, unfortunately, it will not let you know anything (good) about Bloodrock that you did not already know otherwise, even though it should have.

Bloodrock: U.S.A.

BLOODROCK: U.S.A. (1971)

1) It's A Sad World; 2) Don't Eat The Children; 3) Promises; 4) Crazy 'Bout You Babe; 5) Hangman's Dance; 6) American Burn; 7) Rock & Roll Candy Man; 8) Abracadaver; 9) Magic Man; 10) Erosion.

The last and most colorful — at least, in regard to the sleeve — album by the original Bloodrock, before Rutledge and Pickens left the band to a cruel and miserable fate. No major changes in style, but you can see a slight increase in the number of tracks, which indicates the transition to a more compact, less epic scale of things. Even the longest song here, ʽMagic Manʼ, is not a spooky Gothic phantasmagoria à la ʽD.O.A.ʼ or ʽBreach Of Leaseʼ, but a restrained, collected blues-rocker, the most «phantasmagoric» piece of which might be the opening electric piano solo (si­milar in style to and possibly influenced by Ray Manzarek's solo in ʽRiders On The Stormʼ, though, naturally, nowhere near as brilliantly constructed).

The thing is, with this record Bloodrock seem to be taking their «social duties» more seriously than ever — song after song carries a flash of some apocalyptic vision or a scrap of some prophetic message. With Bloodrock's lack of proper atmospheric skills, these messages never carry the convincing force of a ʽGimmie Shelterʼ or a Dark Side Of The Moon, but at least it helps Rutledge, Pickens, and Co. to preserve the «snappy» attitude of their best efforts so far and deliver the goods with enough energy and feeling to shoo away Mr. Languid Boredom.

Not that I could name any particular highlights. For some weird reason, the most memorable bit on the album for me has always been the maniacal laughter fit at the end of ʽAmerican Burnʼ which I have always associated with the album sleeve (which, when fully spread, depicts a very green Mephistopheles embracing the Capitol with one hand and performing lobotomy with the other) even without realizing that the lyrics of the song are indeed referring to the same cover. Which is a little embarrassing, since the song is riff-based, after all, and should be memorable for its twin guitar/organ melodic line instead. But it isn't.

Still, we could at least namedrop ʽDon't Eat The Childrenʼ, a fairly upbeat and jolly tune to be matched with such a title, especially when it comes to the fussy honky-tonk piano solo; the harsh funk-rocker ʽRock & Roll Candy Manʼ; and the closest thing here to an actual «epic» — ʽHang­man's Danceʼ, which borrows the chords from the coda to Yes's ʽStarship Trooperʼ but puts them to different use, replacing the beauty-focused futuristic gaze of Yes with a grittier, more grounded perspective on current things (not that Bloodrock ever created anything as breathtaking as ʽStar­ship Trooperʼ, but at least they tried).

But in the end, my thumbs up for this album would be explained not by any individual songs, but rather just by the record showing some character. It's all mild and never rocks you to the core, yet most of the songs are infused with a mix of sadness, anger, and irony that you wouldn't expect from a completely «generic» American hard rock album. The lack of a single distinctive «peak» like ʽD.O.A.ʼ may actually help things — the music here does not get by on goofy (gory) gim­mickry, but rather on this sense of sadness that subtly inhabits the melodies and even Rutledge's vocal deliveries, which get progressively less brawny and more tragic. As it is, USA may not be a great album, or it may not even be Bloodrock's best album, but it may be that one Bloodrock album which has finally found itself a general purpose. Ironically, God (or Mephisto) simply would not have that, so USA would also be the last LP from classic era Bloodrock as we know it.

Bloodrock: Bloodrock 3

BLOODROCK: BLOODROCK 3 (1971)

1) Jessica; 2) Whiskey Vengeance; 3) Song For A Brother; 4) You Gotta Roll; 5) Breach Of Lease; 6) Kool-Aid-Kids; 7) A Certain Kind; 8) America, America.

All right, looks like we might want to rethink our thoughts about the self-titled debut. Unques­tionably, that was Bloodrock at their freshest, and they'd never really improve on the formula in general — but on a rigid song-for-song basis, Bloodrock 3 might just be their most consistent application of the dang formula. The trick is that it lays in a slight course correction: only one tune carries on with the dumb barroom rock sound (ʽYou Gotta Rollʼ), while everything else is retransferred back to the state of primordial darkness. ʽJessicaʼ, in particular, is a far more distur­bing way to kick off an LP than a rise-and-shine anthem like ʽLucky In The Morningʼ — and the rest of the record rises up to the challenge as well, with suitably creepy riffs, scorching lyrics, and a vocal performance from Rutledge that never forgets to add a «doom» element to all the brawny mas­culinity.

Of course, something like ʽBreach Of Leaseʼ is, first and foremost, a self-conscious attempt at repeating the success of ʽD.O.A.ʼ (although it was never released as a single: big mistake for the band, actually, to override it with the relatively toothless ballad ʽA Certain Kindʼ). But it is more ambitious than ʽD.O.A.ʼ (lyrically, the «breach of lease» refers to the relations between man and God, no less) and has a better chorus — wordless, in fact, just an inspirationally played descen­ding heavy riff that could rival Iommi, issue of guitar tone omitted. It lacks the gory sensationa­lism of ʽD.O.A.ʼ, and you can't sing "I REMEMBER!" at the top of your whiskey-aided lungs to the anthemic chorus, but it's the better song out of the two anyway.

Other highlights include ʽWhiskey Vengeanceʼ, a song that has both the words ʽwhiskeyʼ and ʽvengeanceʼ in its title, which is very appropriate for a band called Bloodrock, and sounds like a Western movie theme with just a small pinch of B-movie horror spirit thrown in; and ʽKool-Aid-Kidsʼ, with a speedy guitar / organ dialog that is very close in effect to classic Deep Purple — I am particularly partial to the relentlessly pounding main guitar riff, but the whole song is deli­vered over six minutes in what feels like one correctly focused breath.

As usual, Bloodrock are at their weakest when they start going all soulful on our asses, even getting downright preachy on ʽSong For A Brotherʼ, a number that is, fortunately, an inoffensive blues-rock jam for about half of its duration. The only really weak number is ʽA Certain Kindʼ, although it is useful to remember where that one came from — it is actually a cover of a ballad from the self-titled debut of Soft Machine! One thing you can't deny is that these Bloodrock guys were much better educated than people usually want to give them credit for. Problem is, they can't do much with the song other than just reduce it to a rather mediocre hillbilly-ballad level, and Rutledge's singing loses its pizzazz every time he rinses the «evil» out of it.

These are all but minor exceptions, though. In general, Bloodrock 3 is all about anger, frustration, paranoia, and the local Texan interpretation of the apocalypse. It ain't no masterpiece, but it's got a mix of American roots-rock, British heavy metal, and continental «artsiness» that very few people... come to think of it, nobody could get such a good grip on. Even if the songs may not strike you as powerful compared to those people from whom Rutledge and co. were taking les­sons, you still got to remember — this sonic blend is quite a thing in itself, and even if I didn't like the songs (but I do), I'd still end up with a thumbs up.

Bloodrock: Bloodrock 2

BLOODROCK: BLOODROCK 2 (1970)

1) Lucky In The Morning; 2) Cheater; 3) Sable And Pearl; 4) Fallin'; 5) Children's Heritage; 6) Dier Not A Lover; 7) D. O. A.; 8) Fancy Space Odyssey.

Bloodrock got their biggest — in fact, their only — break with the rather unexpected (and rather tacky) popularity of ʽD.O.A.ʼ, or, rather, the heavily abbreviated single version of ʽD.O.A.ʼ as opposed to the eight-minute long «epic» version on the LP. In terms of «cheap thrills», it was probably the most Sabbath-style song they'd ever committed to tape — a story told through the dying brain of an airplane crash victim, experiencing his last moments on Earth, with heavy use of «intimidating» musical tricks and volume tricks that recall ʽBlack Sabbathʼ (the song) in matters of «setting» rather than musical substance.

Most people were probably perversely attracted to the tune because of the gory lyrics, with each single reference to blood, pain, and death articulated so slowly and gravely by Rutledge as if he were reciting from the Iliad. But even if your English is not good enough to allow you to under­stand what is going on, the tune is still appropriately moody, driven by an organ riff that cleverly emulates an ambulance siren and Rick Cobb's expert percussion work, as the drummer subtly prepares us for the chorus explosions. It certainly doesn't have enough original ideas to fill up all of its eight minutes — but then you can always have the short single version. And it does feel a little eerie; at the very least, one could always argue that its subject matter is much closer to home (Lee Pickens claimed that it was inspired by a real accident that he had witnessed) than the gro­tesque Satanic imagery of ʽBlack Sabbathʼ.

That said, ʽD.O.A.ʼ is hardly typical of Bloodrock 2 — it's just that, in their prime days, the band took special care that each album include at least one lengthy mood piece, so this one merely sits here in the same spot where they last had ʽFantastic Piece Of Architectureʼ. The rest of the music is almost strictly in the basic rock'n'roll scheme, heavily marinated in the «Americana spirit». In particular, John Nitzinger, another of their Fort Worth friends who had previously contributed three songs for the Bloodrock album, was now involved heavier than ever, and began supplying the band with expansive roots-rock anthems, such as ʽLucky In The Morningʼ, and novelty tunes, such as ʽFancy Space Odysseyʼ, which combines barroom boogie with seemingly absurdist lyrics (as it happens, they actually relate to the band's early days when they were called «Fancy Space» and played in a Fort Worth nightclub).

This bunch of new songs, while not at all bad per se, still indicates a downward slide in the curve, mainly because the heaviness and crunch of the first album are frequently downplayed in favor of a slightly more rustic — dare we even say «redneckier»? — atmosphere. The guitar tones are still low and distorted, but more in a «brawny» than an «evil» kind of way, and, in agreement with that, Rutledge's singing keeps generating a braggadoccio effect rather than the angry / snappy effect it had earlier on tracks like ʽCastle Of Thoughtsʼ. The absolute low point is ʽSable And Pearlʼ, the band's attempt at hitting it from the soulful side, where Rutledge overscreams in the bridge section (a "TEACH ME TO LOVE YOU!" that sounds more like a "get out of the kit­chen!", if you get my drift) to a very irritating effect — the rest, thankfully, is a little more restrai­ned, but still, a bit on the «flat» side of things.

Riff-wise, I feel partial to ʽFallin'ʼ and Nitzinger's ʽChildren's Heritageʼ (the former A-side of ʽD.O.A.ʼ), even though both tunes are essentially just fast-paced slices of blues-rock; and ʽFancy Space Odysseyʼ is catchy, but excessively silly — its somewhat carnivalesque riff suggests a comic tune, yet Rutledge sings all the lyrics in his usual grave voice, without any hints at irony, and the end result is confusing. Come to think of it, the whole album is confusing: lots of decent ideas, none of which are taken to their logical conclusions: the band is clearly stuck in the trea­cherous space between «cock rock» and «artsiness», afraid to push too hard in the latter direction but also a little embarrassed to root itself too deep in the former. Ultimately, Bloodrock 2 is a bit of a bore, and the presence of ʽD.O.A.ʼ in all of its stretched-out quasi-glory does not necessarily serve as a relief. But then again, it could have been so much worse — I mean, rough Texan hard rock? God only knows to what sort of lower depths that could descend, so let us all say thank you to the healthy musical climate of 1970.

Bloodrock: Bloodrock

BLOODROCK: BLOODROCK (1970)

1) Gotta Find A Way; 2) Castle Of Thoughts; 3) Fatback; 4) Double Cross; 5) Timepiece; 6) Wicked Truth; 7) Gimme Your Head; 8) Fantastic Piece Of Architecture; 9) Melvin Laid An Egg.

What kind of an association would you have with the word bloodrock? Any band that calls itself that should probably be imagined as some sort of particularly gory, trashy younger brother of Black Sabbath. There's even a couple horror flicks out there called Bloodstone, but, of course, the «stone» part should be swapped for a «rock» part — the band is American, after all. Actually, not just American, but Texan, which would naturally spruce up further associations with Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and when you look at the album cover, there's, like, blood on it, plenty of it, and even a rock for good measure.

In reality, though, the boys from Bloodrock were nowhere near that creepy. A bunch of honest rock'n'rollers from Fort Worth, they spent three years playing as «The Naturals» (indeed) and then three more years playing as «Crowd + 1» (because if you just call yourself «Crowd», people might suspect you of arrogant minimalism), before teaming up with Terry Knight, the producer of Grand Funk Railroad, who came up with the «Bloodrock» moniker for them. Knight, not fully satisfied by already having one big fat ass hard rock ensemble under his belt, decided to procure himself a Southern (Texan) counterpart to the Northern (Michigan) brand of GFR, took Blood­rock under his wing, secured them a contract with Capitol, and produced their first LP.

Testosterone-driven, sweaty, radio-friendly American hard rock is generally not my cup of tea at all — I can cope with the macho attitude, and I can cope with the family-friendly attitude, but combining them is bad for spiritual digestion. Fortunately, Bloodrock, especially on their first al­bums, went beyond that. They had a fairly testosterone-respecting lead singer, Jim Rutledge, with one of those grizzly voices that suggests pumping iron, and a crunchy guitar player, Lee Pickens, a big fan of thick, grumbly guitar riffs, of which he'd written a fair share for this album (more, I think, than Steppenwolf in their entire career). But they also had a streak of darkness and psy­chedelic esca­pism to their craft — Bloodrock is not any less inspired by the Doors and Hendrix than it is by Steppenwolf and GFR.

I think that nothing better illustrates this idea than the start of the album — ʽGotta Find A Wayʼ begins with a low, heavy, «macho» rhythm pattern, but five seconds later is complemented by a high-pitched, fuzzy, psycho-wailing «siren», and more space is given to the battling guitar and organ solos than to the vocal sections. Then ʽCastle Of Thoughtsʼ is the album's most directly Hendrix-inspired track, its rhythm being almost directly lifted off ʽStone Freeʼ, but Stephen Hill's keyboards add an extra layer of complexity, and the guitar/organ interplay part at the end is exciting in a purely «musical» way, putting the emphasis on melody rather than «power».

There may not be anything on Bloodrock that pushes it over the top: although the complete combination of ingredients is somewhat unique, it is not unique enough to turn them into prime league members overnight. But on a song by song basis, Bloodrock is intelligently written and effervescently well performed hard rock. The riffs on ʽDouble Crossʼ, ʽWicked Truthʼ, and par­ticularly ʽMelvin Laid An Eggʼ are all perfectly respectable even for the highest standards of 1970; the lyrics, fluctuating between absurdist, idealistic, and morbid, are unpredictable and not always laughable (ʽTimepieceʼ, after all, is about a prisoner's last minutes before the gallows); and the lengthy songs have enough of dynamics to them, including softer in­terludes and jammy bits. Towards the end, they even try to boldly overstep the boundaries by offering a little Gothic art-rock suite — ʽFantastic Piece Of Architectureʼ is a Poe-worthy tale of disillusionment and «time-conquers-all» sentiment, ceremoniously dressed up in solemn organs, Bach-inspired piano lines and echoey guitar tinkles, and it works surprisingly better than one could expect from a bunch of down-to-earth Texan rockers (although I can't help wondering how much better still it would have sounded in the hands of an Alan Parsons).

In fact, on a song-by-song basis there are simply no bad tracks on Bloodrock at all, which ulti­mately makes their debut record their greatest one (as it happens much too often with second-rate bands). I even like ʽFatbackʼ, despite its lack of a great riff (the song is cleverly driven by piano chords, giving it a little whiff of modern jazz), and ʽGimme Your Headʼ, despite the fact that its own riff deserved a thicker sound and a more prominent position in the mix. Even so, these two minor creations are actually the shortest ones on the album, meaning that Bloodrock were never above stretching out a good idea when the good idea deserved to be stretched out.

Do not expect a jaw-dropping masterpiece, but do expect an interesting combination of ideas. Turning on the «grumbly old-timer» mode, I will say that, had these guys come together forty years later, Bloodrock would almost certainly be a completely one-dimensional creation; back in 1970, though, being one-dimensional was a rather embarrassing perspective, so they gave us this rather oddball take on Texan rock instead. Thumbs up.