ILM's Now For Something Completely Different... 70s Album Poll Results! Top 100 Countdown! (Part 2)

Heh, I like Saw Delight but don't know that it was even nominated.

17. CAN Future Days (4522 Points, 30 Votes)
RYM: #5 for 1973, #134 overall | Acclaimed: #629 | Pitchfork: #56
http://endlessbackgroundnoise.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/can-future-days.jpeg
http://open.spotify.com/album/2GnXVJBYDyJlHat1Ul9IdR
spotify:album:2GnXVJBYDyJlHat1Ul9IdR

Future Days is so laid back and sparsely beautiful that it could have been recorded in California rather than Germany. (Indeed, one of the four lengthy tracks is entitled "Bel Air.") Liebezeit's patterns are quicker and even more in the foreground, but played with great restraint. As Schmidt's synthesizer washes like ocean air, Karoli either twangs and picks guitar in the foreground or drones off in the distance. Mellow yet hardly boring, there's plenty going on here if you listen for it. Suzuki left following Future Days, and Karoli and Schmidt took on vocal responsibilities. -- Trouser Press

FUTURE DAYS which is often quoted as Can's most well-balanced and successful album, with its dreamy cosmic otherworldly atmosphere, understated songs and strong melodic content. This is the era that brought Can international success, with many tours in Britain and the continent. They also recorded sessions for the BBC's "John Peel Show" and "In Concert" programmes. -- Cosmic Egg

This was the last CAN album to feature the great Damo Suzuki and remains my personal favourite. It is a much more ephereal work than Tago mago or Ege Bamyasi, excellent albums both. Future days contains only four tracks, Future days, Spray, Moonshake and Bel Air but it holds a wealth of beauty within.

Suzukis vocals appear even more detatched and dream like, and the CAN core maintain a reserved pulsing brilliance. Moonshake is one of the most arresting tracks I have ever heard and once heard feels like you have known it for ever. Michael karoli plays the finest guitar riffs i have ever heard and its all so understated.

There is a deeply ambient feel to this album but in a good way, and it stands up well to repeated listening. Like the best of CAN, the more you listen the more you hear, even the mammoth Bel Air is stuffed full of mysterious passages. Word is that while the band were ensconced in their Inner Space recording studio embarking on those massive jams the heating system malfunctioned slowly gassing the band.

Future Days has a timeless quality to it, if it were released next year it would not be out of place. It conjures up a very vivid inner landscape in the listener, the title track hints at great optimism and wonder and is Damo at his strangest humane best.

I love the way the great CAN albums appear colour coded, Tago Mago is orange, Ege Bamyasi green and Future Days a deep cobalt blue, the colour to be found on some strange exo planet orbiting a far off star. 

The musicianship is flawless without being overwhelming or showy, Michael Karolis guitar is one of rocks true joys to behold and Jaki Liebezeits drumming is of the very highest order, Future Days may appear effortless but this is surely a tribute to the unique combination of people and their absolute commitment to music without commercial consideration.

Many believe that this was the end of the golden age of CAN, I deeply love all their music but understand its not for everyone, Future Days is a great introduction to this truly unique band, listen, enjoy ,repeat.  -- Bloodbeard, Head Heritage

My first introduction to Can was the excellent but haphazard "Anthology". Fortunately Can are such a distinctive band that it still all seemed to fit together but I always found myself returning to the tracks "Future Days" and "Moonshake" so eventually I bought the album "Future Days" itself.

For me it has always been the peak of Can's music and for a long time I only really enjoyed this and "Ege Bamyasi" from their extensive catalogue. There is a definite split in Can's music between the jagged Velvet's inspired one chord garage drones of the Malcolm Mooney era and the more liquid and original Damo Suzuki music. From Damo's first track with the band "Don't Turn the Light On, Leave Me Alone" you can feel the change in feel as the band mold their music around Damo's voice. With Mooney it often felt as if they were being dragged in his wake such was the strength of his personality. Damo is no less striking but much less declamatory, the tone of his musings blend with the guitar and organ in such as way that with the liberal doses of reverb and delay which cloak the music often it is difficult to say who is creating which melody within a tune.

The title track has been a perennial favourite, it has always felt like a perfect piece, just the right length with not a note out of place. Can with Damo were the only "progressive" band who managed to be both excellent players but also write extremely catchy melodies. The sounds are always extremely organic, no flashy excessive soloing, even though Michael Karoli plays extensively he always plays intricate little tunes which Damo plays off and vice versa. The magic of Can is how they subvert certain prog rock cliches with unexpected twists. The mesmerizing samba rhythms master drummer Jaki Liebezeit weaves beneath "Future Days" is as silky as a Tom Jobim ballad yet also propulsive and muscular. Think of any other prog or Cosmic rock band who would use this groove? Oddly Liebezeit's playing reminds me of Fela Kuti's drummer Tony Allen in that it is jazz influenced but accented in a way that is neither rock, jazz or funk while combining the grooves of each genre.

The next track Splash is my least favourite from the album and feels like it could have come off Can's next album, the Damo less "Soon Over Babaluma" where the jazzy improvisation was removed from the discipline of working with Damo's songs and became indulgent. However being Can it is never less than fascinating, on any other album it would be a stand out track.

It is interesting that Julian hates the second side of "Future Days" calling the oceanic 20 minutes of "Bel Air", a total "mess". However I think that this track perfectly demonstrates the perfect balance Can had with Damo. Yes there are self indulgent parts and yes it could haver lost a few minutes here and there but Damo is always there singing his strange incantations whenever it looks like the band has drifted into ambient doodling. Remove Damo and yes it would be a mess, infact I often see "Soon Over Babaluma" as a series of "Bel Airs" without the tunes. Like any long track it demands your attention, but if you look at "Bel Air" as a series of short pop songs which blend together rather than one intimidating slog the beauty unfolds itself, every time Damo sings it is a new song.

I see "Bel Air" as a follow up to Jimi Hendrix's track "1983" with it's washes of sound which never fall into ambient banality due to the delicacy and sensitivity of the playing and the tough beats which anchor them. There are parallels in the mood to John Martyn's album "Solid Air" which was also released in 1973 with it's blend of electric piano and reverbed twanging guitar. However where Martyn finds sorrow and darkness in this mix Can find a massive neutral charge, removed from any identifiable human emotion, more like standing on a beach in the sun as a cool breeze brushes your face. Not quite elation, not quite pensive.It is this aspect which means this is an album you can listen to in any mood and find yourself in a different place. Only a later album like "Loveless" by My Bloody Valentine would combine this level of the avant and the pop in one sound although again the prevailing mood on MBV's masterwork was intense nostalgia and pain.

Before this monster track comes Can's sweetest pop song. Moonshake has the same sexy samba groove as the title track but this time the Jobim in the beat is given free reign. A cousin to "One More Night" from "Ege Bamyasi" and directly reused by Can themselves on the later "Saw Delight" for the soundalike "Don't Say No", this is a propulsive stomper which is both funky and weird with the odd scratches and bleeps which take the place of a solo in the middle. Can's disco side would coem to full fruition on their one UK hit, the facile but fun "I Want More".

I can see why this album is often under rated compared to the more obviously rocking Mooney era "Monster Movie" and the Damo led "Tago Mago". It is possible that "Future Days" could be perceived as being a little bland after their previous fire breathing sturm und drang. However I feel that many of the early Can tracks are too close to The Velvet Underground and The Mothers in style and simply lacking in the narcotic melody they would find on Ege Bamyasi" and "Future Days". Despite the ferocity of Malcolm Mooney I find much of the garage rock Can boring in the same way I find much of the proto punk critics darlings like The Stooges tedious. If you are going to have no tune then go all the way and sound like "Negativland" by Neu! I would suggest that at least half of "Tago Mago" and "Monster Movie" are more of a "mess" than "Bel Air"!

Of their later albums after "Future Days" I dislike "Soon Over Babluma" and "Landed" (their worst album by some way) but enjoy "Flow Motion" for it's odd dub experiments and poppy disco and enjoy the first album with new members Rosko Gee and Rebop Kwaku Baahchaz, "Saw Delight" which has a sunny around the world in a day vibe. -- Maningrey, Head Heritage

Vocalist (can’t really call him a singer) Damo Suzuki’s final album with Can, Future Days (1973) calms down the wild experimentation enough to project a more cohesive sound. It aims to sound otherworldly and futuristic and succeeds, making good on the term “kosmische musik” (cosmic music). The band is locked into a hypnotic groove could be credited as an origin of the Western version of “trance” music, which wouldn’t be explored much more for another 20 years. It also anticipates Brian Eno’s ambient music. “Future Days” sets the pace with Jaki Liebezeit’s drums keeping a steady pulse rather than the usual chaotic eruptions, and Michael Karoli’s guitar floating ethereally in the background. Irmin Schmidt introduces more atmospheric keyboards and electronics on “Spray.” “Bel Air” is the 20 minute centerpiece, featuring several peaks and valleys. On the short “Moonshake,” Suzuki’s vocals play a larger role, at least augmenting the rhythm with his whispers. Overall though, he played a more key role in previous albums as the Wildman. Here, he’s not obtrusive, but certainly inessential. Fanboys like Julian Cope in his book Krautrocksampler dismisses later Can because of this, calling Future Days a “schizophrenic stalemate” and dismissing later albums as “patchy, flawed.” But just because Can shed a skin and grew a new one doesn’t mean they’re any less groundbreaking or engrossing. Future Days is one of their best, and their next, Soon Over Babaluma is my favorite. Karoli and Schmidt split the vocal duties and do a find job of blending into the music well. Violin is more prominent here, as is Holgar Czukay’s bass. In fact, everything seems to have evolved a step -- the guitar playing is nearly Flamenco like in its delicate intricacy, while everything from reggae, Latin and African rhythms are subtly incorporated. There may be few grandstanding moments, but overall the album is even more beautiful sounding than Future Days. “Dizzy Dizzy” and “Come Sta, La Luna” are as pioneering as anything from earlier albums, while they retain a slight intense sense of dread in “Chain Reaction/Quantum Physics.” -- Fastnbulbous

review
by Jason Ankeny

Damo Suzuki's final effort is Can's most atmospheric and beautiful record, a spartan collection of lengthy, jazz-like compositions recorded with minimal vocal contributions. Employing keyboard washes to create a breezy, almost oceanic feel (indeed, two of the tracks are titled "Spray" and "Bel Air"), the mix buries Suzuki's voice to elevate drummer Jaki Liebezeit's complex rhythms to the foreground; despite the deceptive tranquility of its surface, Future Days is an intense work, bubbling with radical ideas and concepts.

Yes We Can

I like both sides, never really thought of the first side as more rockin' but I guess it is. Isi starts out pretty poppy, I'm sure it could be featured in a car ad.

changed my mind a dozen times but i think i've settled on future days being their best

Suzuki left following Future Days

Too bad. He was so appropriate.

btw that rallizes linked on spotify is very much not the same as live 77 but it's better. live 77 is in fact way more distortiony and blown out (and equally great).

I change my mind all the time on my fave Can album.

Lol, Tarfumes.

The Rallizes Denudes that's on Spotify is pretty good! As is Future Days obviously! Not sure I've heard Neu 75, though I did vote for the first two albums!

i didnt vote in the poll but Future Days would have been my number one.

I think my Can votes were for Tago Mago and Ege Bamyasi but I'd have to check.

Les Rallizes Whateva is better than "Raw Power" is it? Must be good. At least "Future Days" won't be the highest placed Can album, that's a relief.

16. PUBLIC IMAGE LTD Metal Box/Second Edition (4526 Points, 33 Votes)
RYM: #14 for 1979, #590 overall | Acclaimed: #208 | RS: #469
http://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_500/MI0000/598/MI0000598462.jpg?partner=allrovi.com
http://open.spotify.com/album/7HoqZkuUQEE12tl0ByOSsh
spotify:album:7HoqZkuUQEE12tl0ByOSsh

In which former three-chord savage J. Lydon turns self-conscious primitivist, quite sophisticated in his rotten way. PIL complements Lydon's civilized bestiality by reorganizing the punk basics--ineluctable pulse, impermeable bass, attack guitar--into a full-bodied superaware white dub with disorienting European echoes. Much of the music on this double-LP version of the exorbitant three-disc, forty-five r.p.m. Metal Box is difficult; some of it fails. But the lyrics are both listenable and readable, and thanks to the bass parts even the artiest instrumentals have a leg up on, to choose a telling comparison, Brian Eno's. Don't say I didn't warn you, though--it may portend some really appalling bullshit. No matter what J. Lydon says, rock and roll doesn't deserve to die just because it's twenty-five years old. J. Lydon will be twenty-five years old himself before he knows it. A- -- R. Christgau

He hit the green on Metal Box, a brilliant statement in packaging — originally three 12-inch 45s in an embossed circular tin — to performance. Jah Wobble's overpowering bass sets up throbbing lines around which Keith Levene's guitar and keyboards flick in and out. Lydon wails, chants and moans impressionistic lyrics. A disturbing and captivating milestone. The limited-edition Metal Box wasn't cheap to produce, and so the music was reissued asSecond Edition: two LPs in a gatefold sleeve. Second Edition benefits from printed lyrics and funhouse photos, but has inferior sound — this is tactile music — and a running order that makes less sense. (Metal Box came full conceptual circle in 1990 when it was issued as a single CD in a five-inch tin.) -- Trouser Press

"Warner Brothers wasn't interested in a cannister," John Lydon said to Wayne Robins of Newsday. "It's something I complained about extremely bitterly." ...on first listening, little more than Lydon's denunciations, bad dreams, cries for help and Bela Lugosi imitations set against Jah Wobble's pompous bass and Keith LEvene's endless guitar and synthesizer noodling--short on perversity; and the fact that you had to get up and change sides every ten minutes or so didn't make the music any more inviting. Or was that the idea? And if so, who cared?...As Second Edition makes clear, PiL's music is no joke. It is, as Lydon claims, "anti-rock & roll."--territory staked out in opposition to what we now accept as rock & roll--but it's als oa version of rock & roll. Like disco, or respecially the bass-led, out-of-reach rhythms of Jamaican dub, PiL's sound is at once teh subversion of a recognizable form and an attempt to follow certain implications, hidden within that form to their necessary conclusions...

...Then the compositions begin to work off each other, and tracks that at first seemed dully similar (how do you do the Plague?) are thrown into relief. What you hear is a sometimes scattered and sometimes momentous beat, provided by Wobble and session drummers; textures, or perhaps less textures than the shifts between them; less a vocal than the idea behind it; less passion or dispassion than the component emotions of each; less a rhythm than a rhythm in the process of reconstituting itself. You being to hear the music being made. Like a piece of modern architecture that places the inner workings of a building--heating pipes, electrical systems, support structures--in plain sight, you hear PiL's music inside out.

...The true story of present-day rock has less to do with how many albums Bruce Springsteen has sold, or even with the Clash's narrow-but-deep American breakthrough, than with the fact that many of the most interesting and adventurous groups of the time -- Essential Logic, Young Marble Giants, the Feelies, X-Ray Spex, the Adverts or the Raincoats (at the press conference I attended, the only band Lydon would admit to liking) -- have not even had their records released in this country.

PiL want distance from such a scene -- as, quite consciously, do many of the groups noted above -- but what sort of distance? On Second Edition, Lydon, Levene and Wobble are insisting on the kind of outsider status that a dub composer like Augustus Pablo, or even a weird soul singer like Al Green, takes as a given--at least as far as any sort of broad-based popular audience is concerned...The murk is artful, even arty; the self-pity merely the first face; the unaxamined images often an entry into trance music. Obsessively danceable, the LP has complexity that, once glimpsed, has to be pursued.

...From the way Lydon is talking, he wants very badly for Second Edition to be hailed as a historic breakthrough or written off as a fraud, and it is neither: one of the reasons you can hear Lydon trying to decide how he wants to phrase a line is because he doesn't know quite what he wants to say. John Lydon claimes that PiL have no competitoin, no comrades, and that is not true either: there are a lot of groups, almost all of them British, standing outside the boundaries of rock & roll and aiming their sounds inside. What Public Image Ltd. have established with Second Edition is the fact that the limits on what they have to say are not at all apparent. The same cannot be said of many bands in the spring of 1980. - Greil Marcus, RS

review
[-] by Andy Kellman

PiL managed to avoid boundaries for the first four years of their existence, and Metal Box is undoubtedly the apex. It's a hallmark of uncompromising, challenging post-punk, hardly sounding like anything of the past, present, or future. Sure, there were touchstones that got their imaginations running -- the bizarreness of Captain Beefheart, the open and rhythmic spaces of Can, and the dense pulses of Lee Perry's productions fueled their creative fires -- but what they achieved with their second record is a completely unique hour of avant-garde noise. Originally packaged in a film canister as a trio of 12" records played at 45 rpm, the bass and treble are pegged at 11 throughout, with nary a tinge of midrange to be found. It's all scrapes and throbs (dubscrapes?), supplanted by John Lydon's caterwauling about such subjects as his dying mother, resentment, and murder. Guitarist Keith Levene splatters silvery, violent, percussive shards of metallic scrapes onto the canvas, much like a one-armed Jackson Pollock. Jah Wobble and Richard Dudanski lay down a molasses-thick rhythmic foundation throughout that's just as funky as Can's Czukay/Leibezeit and Chic's Edwards/Rodgers. It's alien dance music. Metal Box might not be recognized as a groundbreaking record with the same reverence as Never Mind the Bollocks, and you certainly can't trace numerous waves of bands who wouldn't have existed without it like the Sex Pistols record. But like a virus, its tones have sent miasmic reverberations through a much broader scope of artists and genres. [Metal Box was issued in the States in 1980 with different artwork and cheaper packaging under the title Second Edition; the track sequence differs as well. The U.K. reissue of Metal Box on CD boasts better sound quality than the Second Edition CD.]

listening to Rallizes on Youtube. pretty exciting stuff.

indeed. i recommend listening to versions of "night of the assassins" for at least an hour.

onto flames of ice, fair taking my skull off. this is that making-love-to-guitar shit that Hendrix was on to

maybe hendrix was more vaginal, this more sodomical, both are pure sex

wait what am I saying

I'm not sure.

15. SLY & THE FAMILY STONE There's A Riot Goin' On (4528 Points, 32 Votes, 1 #1)
RYM: #21 for 1971, #294 overall | Acclaimed: #51 | RS: #99 | Pitchfork: #4
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iHiOe46GgpU/TkARFfasP5I/AAAAAAAACFs/8HfQjGdYf9M/s1600/Sly+%2526+The+Family+Stone+-+There%2527s+A+Riot+Going+On.jpg
http://open.spotify.com/album/0ihYToxMgYcuHuxOKjGQKO
spotify:album:0ihYToxMgYcuHuxOKjGQKO

http://www.superseventies.com/oaaa/oaaa_slystone.jpg

Despairing, courageous, and very hard to take, this is one of those rare albums whose whole actually does exceed the sum of its parts. Bleak yet sentient songs of experience like "Runnin' Away" and "Family Affair" lend emotional and aesthetic life to the music's dead spaces; bracing alterations of vocal register, garish stereo separations, growls and shrieks and murmurs, all the stuff that made Sly's greatest hits the toughest commercial experiments in rock and roll history, are dragged over nerve-wracking rhythms of enormous musical energy. The inspiration may be Sly's discovery that the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow doesn't mean shit, but what's expressed is the bitterest ghetto pessimism. Inspirational Verse: "TIME they say is/The answer/But I don't believe it." Original title: Africa Talks to You. Length of title track: 0:00. A+ -- R. Christgau

Maybe this is the new urban music. It's not about dancing to the music in the streets. It's about disintegration, getting fucked up, nodding, maybe dying. There are flashes of euphoria, ironic laughter, even some bright stretches but mostly it's just junkie death, oddly unoppressive and almost attractive in its effortlessness. Like going to sleep very slowly. The music has no peaks, no emphasis, little movement, it seems to fall away like a landslide in a dream (you falling slowly too, not panicking) or merely continue, drained of impetus, self-destructing. Smack rock.

It's Sly & the Family Stone's fifth album (not counting the Greatest Hits collection) and their first new LP since April 1969. Perversely titled -- There's a Riot Goin' On (Epic KE 30986) implies action -- irrelevantly packaged -- a wordless open-fold with a "flag" cover, the stars replaced by white sunbursts on black and a terrible junior high Polaroid collage of Family and friends on the back -- the album is a testament to two years of deterioration rather than two years of growth. One of the most influential innovators in recent years, Sly retains a certain inventiveness and a characteristically high-strung sound but he's left behind much more.

The tone is set in the opening cut, "Luv n' Haight" which begins, "Feel so good inside myself/Don't want to move/Feel so good inside myself/Don't need to move." Although stripped of the force of Sly's old stuff, "Luv n' Haight" is practically speedy in the context of the Riot album. The tension between the song's languid, stoned qualities (mainly the vocals, with Sly again, and throughout the album, playing with the limits of his voice) and the prodding, nervous qualities of the music (especially the wah-wah guitar) is the perfect mirror of the lyrics, which vary in their wasted indecision between the original "Don't want to move" and "Feel so good/I want to move." But you know the dude is too fucked up to move even if he wants to.

"Luv n' Haight" also contains these lines: "As I grow up,/I'm growing down./And when I'm lost/I know I will be found." As one of the many cryptic hints of Sly's condition spread through the album, this is a typical combination of hope and pain, two elements constantly at war here.

It's a very personal album and if there's a riot goin' on, its inside Sly Stone. David Kapralik, Sly's manager, has a line about the "riot" being in the environment, and timed at 0:00, is space for examination of the "riot" all around you, the interpretation is up to you. If Sly seems weaker lyrically than on his previous work, it can be laid in part to pure stoned self-indulgence and the kind of dumb incoherence he often displays on stage, but more importantly, it's the result of a very real personal struggle, with only tentative, vaguely grasped solutions. On "Africa Talks to You" he asks (himself), "When life means much to you,/Why live for dying?/If you are doing right,/Why are you crying?"

"Family Affair," its sound once mournful and playful, deals with these questions a little further down the line toward understanding them and their answers. The double meaning of the title -- a private matter, A Family (Stone) affair -- emphasizes its concerns are close to home. The singing is plain, gritty, stripped of any pretty vocal qualities, just Sly in the lead with Sister Rosie repeating almost plaintively, "It's a family affair." At the end, Sly states quite clearly the conflict at the center of the album: "You can't leave, 'cause your heart is there./But you can't stay, 'cause you been somewhere else!/You can't cry, 'cause you'll look broke down,/But you're cryin' anyway 'cause you're all broke down!"

"Runnin' Away" picks up the conflict with more irony, more distance, but the same painful self-awareness folded into a deceptively bright package. "Look at you fooling you," the song taunts, "You're stretching out your dues." As an insight into Sly's own delusions and everyone's, the song is one of the only moments of the genuine self-satisfaction on the album. "You Caught Me Smilin'," on the other hand, seems full of self-deception, the smile sounds like a mask and Sly is really saying, like Smokey Robinson in "Track of My Tears," "Take a good look at my face/You'll see my smile looks out of place." He drops the pretense slightly in the last line: "In my pain, I'll be the same to take your hand," but covers himself immediately with the smiling mask of sanity. Look at you fooling you.

"Africa Talks to You 'The Asphalt Jungle'" and "Brave & Strong" are both more complex, more irritating and less accessible. The lyrics are broken and puzzling, near-impenetrable in "Africa"; the sound, too, is fragmented, ominous, jittery, again, more so in "Africa" where the last half of the cut drifts off as if dazed, mixing with these ghostly voices warning "Timber!" Both songs seem to be warnings, personal, but directed outward to all of us more so than much of the other material here. In "Africa" the warning is "Watch out, 'cause the summer gets cold.../When today gets too old"; time is running out ("Timber...all fall down!") and ain't nobody gonna save you but yourself. "Brave & Strong" pushes the point -- "Survive!" -- more emphatically but less effectively -- a more muddled, less interesting song.

Much of the rest is just bad: pretentious ("Poet"), cut, dumb ("Spaced Cowboy"), inconsequential ("Time"). Kapralik, again, says that when any "great creator" has reached the top, "the only ting to do is step back and lay back." Is that what you call it? Feels more like being knocked back and struggling to recover. "Thank you for the party/I could never stay,/Many thangs [sic] is on my mind/Words in the way." Sly has cut to the minimum, reduced his music to bare structures, put aside the density and play of voices in the Family in favor of his anguished, unpolished lead and quiet choruses. Maybe he had little choice. You couldn't say Riot is a pulling through or an overcoming. It's a record of a condition, a fever chart.

As such, it doesn't invite an easy response. At first I hated it for its weakness and its lack of energy and I still dislike these qualities. But then I began to respect the album's honesty, cause in spite of the obvious deception of some cuts, Sly was laying himself out in all his fuck-ups. And at the same time holding a mirror up to all of us. No more pretense, no more high-energy. You're dying, we're all dying. It's hard to take, but There's a Riot Goin' On is one of the most important fucking albums of this year. -- Vince Aletti, RS

Sly And The Family Stone's upbeat multiracial rock 'n' soul reflected the optimism of the Civil Rights movement through the 1960s; but as that optimism withered away into bitter radicalism, so Stone underwent a similarly painful spiritual journey. Darkness was no stranger to Sly's Day-Glo fusion-pop; "Hot Fun In The Summertime" slyly sang of the Watts riots. But worsening civil unrest and the carnage of Vietnam, combined with his fragile emotional state and a mess of drugs, prompted him to deliver this haunted State of the Nation address.

This album was the product of endless sessions and overdubs, a coke-wired Stone wearing out the tapes. Rumor has it Miles Davis contributed some trumpet to the album, and live drums struggle for space with primitive drum machines; bass squelches freely about, loose and predatory; wah-wah guitars slash.

The heavyweight funk that dominates the album -- hazy, spooked, stoned -- lends an extra poignancy to the album's wistful slivers of pop, "Runnin' Away" and "You Caught Me Smilin'" -- moments of tenderness, relief from the defeated, angry funk. Previous Sly hits are referenced, pointedly the "'Everyday People' looking forward to a simple beating" on "Time," or a death-rattle crawl through previous hit "Thank You" was a closer.

A painfully accurate diagnosis of America's malaise and Sly's own spiritual disintegration, it alienated much of the fanbase, and signaled Sly's subsequent drug-fueled descent. It remains, however, a starkly brilliant album, a bruised, funky howl of soul under pressure. -- Stevie Chick, 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die

review
[-] by Stephen Thomas Erlewine

It's easy to write off There's a Riot Goin' On as one of two things -- Sly Stone's disgusted social commentary or the beginning of his slow descent into addiction. It's both of these things, of course, but pigeonholing it as either winds up dismissing the album as a whole, since it is so bloody hard to categorize. What's certain is that Riot is unlike any of Sly & the Family Stone's other albums, stripped of the effervescence that flowed through even such politically aware records as Stand! This is idealism soured, as hope is slowly replaced by cynicism, joy by skepticism, enthusiasm by weariness, sex by pornography, thrills by narcotics. Joy isn't entirely gone -- it creeps through the cracks every once and awhile and, more disturbing, Sly revels in his stoned decadence. What makes Riot so remarkable is that it's hard not to get drawn in with him, as you're seduced by the narcotic grooves, seductive vocals slurs, leering electric pianos, and crawling guitars. As the themes surface, it's hard not to nod in agreement, but it's a junkie nod, induced by the comforting coma of the music. And damn if this music isn't funk at its deepest and most impenetrable -- this is dense music, nearly impenetrable, but not from its deep grooves, but its utter weariness. Sly's songwriting remains remarkably sharp, but only when he wants to write -- the foreboding opener "Luv N' Haight," the scarily resigned "Family Affair," the cracked cynical blues "Time," and "(You Caught Me) Smilin'." Ultimately, the music is the message, and while it's dark music, it's not alienating -- it's seductive despair, and that's the scariest thing about it.

#1 in the original ILM 70s poll

JUST RIGHT here imo

Was AL Green allowed in this poll?

maybe hendrix was more vaginal, this more sodomical, both are pure sex

― delete (imago), Thursday, March 28, 2013 1:09 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wait what am I saying

― delete (imago), Thursday, March 28, 2013 1:09 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm not sure.

― Newgod.css (seandalai), Thursday, March 28, 2013 1:10 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark

lol, what were you saying?!

14. BRIAN ENO Here Come the Warm Jets (4575 Points, 29 Votes, 2 #1s)
RYM: #3 for 1974, #206 overall | Acclaimed: #424 | RS: #436 | Pitchfork: #24
http://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_500/MI0000/914/MI0000914163.jpg?partner=allrovi.com
http://open.spotify.com/album/74jn28Kr29iyh8eZXSvnwi
spotify:album:74jn28Kr29iyh8eZXSvnwi

The idea of this record--top of the pops from quasi-dadaist British synth wizard--may put you off, but the actuality is quite engaging in a vaguely Velvet Underground kind of way. Minimally differentiated variations on the same melody recur and recur, but it's a great melody, and not the only one, and chances are he meant it that way, as a statement, which I agree with. What's more, words take over when the music falters, and on "Cindy Tells Me" they combine for the best song ever written about middle-class feminism, a rock and roll subject if ever there was one. My major complaint is that at times the artist uses a filter that puts dust on my needle. A -- R. Christgau

Here Come the Warm Jets, Eno's first foray as a solo artist, features sharply crafted, cerebral pop songs that put equal emphasis on quirky music and chatty, surrealistic lyrics — an endearing novelty record with bizarre but affecting songs that no one else could have made. -- Trouser Press

One of the more intriguing developments on today's English rock scene has been the emergence of a cult of marginal musicians bent on doing "weird" things to the traditional pop song format. Be it in the name of being "trendy" (Elton John) or just for the sake of seeming mysterious (Roxy Music), these folks have taken so many liberties with a hackneyed old genre that it frequently ends up sounding quite unlike the early Beatles records which were its foremost representation.

Brian Eno, formerly of Roxy Music, is another one who writes weird songs but their weirdness is more silly than puzzling. Lacking any mentionable instrumental proficiency, he claims he "treats" other musicians' instruments — though the end product of his efforts would have to be classed as indiscernible.

His record is annoying because it doesn't do anything. The songs aren't strong enough individually or collectively to merit more than a passing listen. Save for some incendiary guitar work by Robert Fripp during "Baby's On Fire," the instrumentation is pretty tepid. In fact the whole album may be described as tepid, and the listener must kick himself for blowing five bucks on baloney.

Historians might want to take note of the fact that "Needles in the Camel's Eye" has a heavy Del Shannon influence; that "Some of Them Are Old" is constructed around harmonies highly reminiscent of the Four Freshmen; that the first three songs on side B quote extensively from the Beatles' Abbey Road. Others will hopefully join with this writer in taking exception to this insane divergence of styles and wish that the next time Eno makes an album, he will attempt to structure his work rather than throw together the first ten things that come to mind. -- Gordon Fletcher, RS

“Here Come The Warm Jets’ was the fruit of speculation by all early Roxy Music fans, as to what would emerge from the ashes of Eno’s bitter split from the band. Employing the likes of Phil Manzanera, Andy MacKay, Phil Collins, Morris Pert, John Cale and Robert Fripp (to name a few), the resulting album was one of the most picturesque and imaginative sounding rock albums to date. The myriad of different instruments and sounds made for unusual pop music, but to the ears and the mind it was some of the most stimulating. The title track was the hypnotic instrumental closing the album and every song preceding it was nothing short of brilliant. The classic “Baby’s On Fire” was, indeed, a high point on side 1 with Fripp’s near 3 minute mesmerizing guitar solo. Bookended by songs like “Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch” (about a true story of internal combustion) and “Cindy Tells Me”. Back then, the best part of the album “Here Comes The Warm Jets” was one’s induced anticipation for his 2nd solo album, which would come the following year. 1973 was a great year for Rock music and this album only made it that much more spectacular!  -- Zenbaby, Head Heritage

review
by Steve Huey

Eno's solo debut, Here Come the Warm Jets, is a spirited, experimental collection of unabashed pop songs on which Eno mostly reprises his Roxy Music role as "sound manipulator," taking the lead vocals but leaving much of the instrumental work to various studio cohorts (including ex-Roxy mates Phil Manzanera and Andy Mackay, plus Robert Fripp and others). Eno's compositions are quirky, whimsical, and catchy, his lyrics bizarre and often free-associative, with a decidedly dark bent in their humor ("Baby's on Fire," "Dead Finks Don't Talk"). Yet the album wouldn't sound nearly as manic as it does without Eno's wildly unpredictable sound processing; he coaxes otherworldly noises and textures from the treated guitars and keyboards, layering them in complex arrangements or bouncing them off one another in a weird cacophony. Avant-garde yet very accessible, Here Come the Warm Jets still sounds exciting, forward-looking, and densely detailed, revealing more intricacies with every play.

Wasn't nominated but wasn't not allowed, Tom

one day someone may do a 70s soul poll (not me)

Driving Me Backwards is the best song on HCTWJ. It's apocalyptic, loathing, misanthropic majesty, it's everything being sucked into the Abyss while a grinning Eno watches on. And there's all those lovely pop songs too...

Rallizes made top 20! Oww yeah!

And yes please! to Metal Box as well!

And Riot! (too low)

Actually sean maybe otm wrt Riot

there is a motown/stax poll and a disco poll in the queue for artist polls (yeah I know they're more tracks based polls but maybe there will be albums?)

nah riot should be top 10

the erotic reverie on Les Rallizes Denudes is something I will not explain, nor try to, especially with this much feedback in my ears

But funk is in. Confusing.

you should have nominated Tom (and voted)

aagggghhh title track to Here Come the Warm Jets is one of my favorite songs of all time! it's the embodiment of everything all at once! truly the portal to another dimension if you listen to it at the right time and place.

title-track was an excellent first choice of PA track after the recent Wire gig, which ended with ten minutes of 30 gutarists making white noise

dreamy

you should have nominated Tom (and voted)

What and have Al Green outflanked by the Pink Fairies? No thanks!

there is a motown/stax poll and a disco poll in the queue for artist polls (yeah I know they're more tracks based polls but maybe there will be albums?)

There will definitely be a Stax albums subpoll, can't speak for the others.

13. LED ZEPPELIN Physical Graffiti (4676 Points, 29 Votes, 1 #1)
RYM: #3 for 1975, #124 overall | Acclaimed: #98 | RS: #70 | Pitchfork: #95

I suppose a group whose specialty is excess should be proud to emerge from a double-LP in one piece. But except on side two--comprising three-only-three Zep classics: "Houses of the Holy," "Trampled Under Foot," and the exotic "Kashmir"--they do disperse quite a bit, not into filler and throwaway ("Boogie with Stu" and "Black Country Woman" on side four are fab prefabs) but into wide tracks, misconceived opi, and so forth. Jimmy Page cuts it throughout, but after a while Robert Plant begins to grate--and I like him. B+ -- R. Christgau

Physical Graffiti is Led Zeppelin's bid for artistic respectability. This two-record set, the product of almost two years' labor, is the band's Tommy, Beggar's Banquet and Sgt. Pepper rolled into one.

In a virtual recapitulation of the group's career, Physical Graffiti touches all the bases. There's a blues ("In My Time of Dying") and a cosmic-cum-heavy ballad ("In the Light"); there's an acoustic interlude ("Bron-Y-Aur") and lots of bludgeoning hard rock, still the band's forte ("Houses of the Holy," "The Wanton Song"); there are also hints of Bo Diddley ("Custard Pie"), Burt Bacharach ("Down by the Seaside") and Kool and the Gang ("Trampled under Foot"). If nothing else, Physical Graffiti is a tour de force.

The album's -- and the band's -- mainspring in Jimmy Page, guitarist extraordinaire. His primary concern, both as producer and guitarist, is sound. His playing lacks the lyricism of Eric Clapton, the funk of Jimi Hendrix, the rhythmic flair of Peter Townshend; but of all the virtuoso guitarists of the Sixties, Page, along with Hendrix, has most expanded the instrument's sonic vocabulary.

He has always exhibited a studio musician's knack for functionalism. Unlike many of his peers, he rarely overplays, especially on record. A facile soloist, Page excels at fills, obbligatos and tags. Playing off stock riffs, he modulates sonorities, developing momentum by modifying instrumental colors. To this end, he uses a wide array of effects, including onPhysical Graffiti some echoed slide ("Time of Dying"), a countryish vibrato ("Seaside"), even a swimming, clear tone reminiscent of Lonnie Mack (the solo on "The Rover"). But his signature remains distortion. Avoiding "clean" timbres, Page usually pits fuzzed out overtones against a hugely recorded bottom, weaving his guitar in and out of the total mix, sometimes echoing Robert Plant's contorted screams, sometimes tunneling behind a dryly thudding drum.

Physical Graffiti only confirms Led Zeppelin's preeminence among hard rockers. Although it contains no startling breakthroughs, it does affford an impressive overview of the band's skill. On "Houses of the Holy," Robert Plant's lyrics mesh perfectly with Page's stuttering licks. On "Ten Years Gone," a progression recalling the Beatles' "Dear Prudence" resolves in a beautifully waddling refrain, Page scooping broad and fuzzy chords behind Plant, who sounds a lot like Rod Stewart. Elsewhere, the band trundles out the Marrakech Symphony Orchestra (for "Kashmir"), Ian Stewart's piano and even a mandolin (both for "Boogie with Stu").

Despite some lapses into monotony along the way ("In My Time of Dying," "Kashmir") Physical Graffiti testifies to Page's taste and Led Zeppelin's versatility. Taken as a whole, it offers an astonishing variety of music, produced impeccably by Page. On Physical Graffiti, Led Zeppelin performs rock with creativity, wit and undeniable impact.

They have forged an original style, and they have grown within it; they have rooted their music in hard-core rock & roll, and yet have gone beyond it. They may not be the greatest rock band of the Seventies. But after seven years, five platinum albums and now Physical Graffiti, the world's most popular rock band must be counted among them. -- Jim Miller, RS

While Led Zeppelin could never be blamed for the macho homogeneity of the heavy metal they inspired, Physical Graffiti was an album of truly ambitious scope and lusty abandon. The sixth Zeppelin album, and the first on their own Swan Song label, Physical Graffiti has a nomadic spirit, consisting of sessions interrupted by a bout of illness on John Paul Jones' part and their inability to find a free studio for any length of time.

Its four sides of vinyl allowed Zep to experiment at length. The innovative die-cut sleeve (each window revealing an image printed on the inner sleeve) housed raw, rootsy rock 'n' roll ("Boogie With Stu"), precious folk minatures ("Bron-Yr-Aur"), funk-metal ("Trampled Underfoot"), mordant prog ("In The Light"), and giddy pop ("Down By The Seaside").

Inspired by Page and Plant's recent trip to Morocco, the colossal "Kashmir" was a shuddering beast of faux-mysticism and exotica, John Paul Jones' droning synth-strings forming modal melodies as John Bonham pounded away, monolithically. Epic jam "In My Time Of Dying," written as they recorded it, was a blur of Jimmy Page's murderous slide-guitar, the band roaring like a force of nature (a clear influence on The White Stripes). "Ten Years Gone" was the most surprising -- a touching, sentimental lament from Robert Plant for the love he left to join the band -- Page's closing solo proving how tender Zeppelin could be, when they deigned.

Physical Graffiti is Led Zeppelin's last true peak, and remains a truly dizzying achievement. -- Stevie Chick, 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die

13. LED ZEPPELIN Physical Graffiti (4676 Points, 29 Votes, 1 #1)
RYM: #3 for 1975, #124 overall | Acclaimed: #98 | RS: #70 | Pitchfork: #95
http://proox.biz/files/images/graffiti.jpg

I suppose a group whose specialty is excess should be proud to emerge from a double-LP in one piece. But except on side two--comprising three-only-three Zep classics: "Houses of the Holy," "Trampled Under Foot," and the exotic "Kashmir"--they do disperse quite a bit, not into filler and throwaway ("Boogie with Stu" and "Black Country Woman" on side four are fab prefabs) but into wide tracks, misconceived opi, and so forth. Jimmy Page cuts it throughout, but after a while Robert Plant begins to grate--and I like him. B+ -- R. Christgau

Physical Graffiti is Led Zeppelin's bid for artistic respectability. This two-record set, the product of almost two years' labor, is the band's Tommy, Beggar's Banquet and Sgt. Pepper rolled into one.

In a virtual recapitulation of the group's career, Physical Graffiti touches all the bases. There's a blues ("In My Time of Dying") and a cosmic-cum-heavy ballad ("In the Light"); there's an acoustic interlude ("Bron-Y-Aur") and lots of bludgeoning hard rock, still the band's forte ("Houses of the Holy," "The Wanton Song"); there are also hints of Bo Diddley ("Custard Pie"), Burt Bacharach ("Down by the Seaside") and Kool and the Gang ("Trampled under Foot"). If nothing else, Physical Graffiti is a tour de force.

The album's -- and the band's -- mainspring in Jimmy Page, guitarist extraordinaire. His primary concern, both as producer and guitarist, is sound. His playing lacks the lyricism of Eric Clapton, the funk of Jimi Hendrix, the rhythmic flair of Peter Townshend; but of all the virtuoso guitarists of the Sixties, Page, along with Hendrix, has most expanded the instrument's sonic vocabulary.

He has always exhibited a studio musician's knack for functionalism. Unlike many of his peers, he rarely overplays, especially on record. A facile soloist, Page excels at fills, obbligatos and tags. Playing off stock riffs, he modulates sonorities, developing momentum by modifying instrumental colors. To this end, he uses a wide array of effects, including onPhysical Graffiti some echoed slide ("Time of Dying"), a countryish vibrato ("Seaside"), even a swimming, clear tone reminiscent of Lonnie Mack (the solo on "The Rover"). But his signature remains distortion. Avoiding "clean" timbres, Page usually pits fuzzed out overtones against a hugely recorded bottom, weaving his guitar in and out of the total mix, sometimes echoing Robert Plant's contorted screams, sometimes tunneling behind a dryly thudding drum.

Physical Graffiti only confirms Led Zeppelin's preeminence among hard rockers. Although it contains no startling breakthroughs, it does affford an impressive overview of the band's skill. On "Houses of the Holy," Robert Plant's lyrics mesh perfectly with Page's stuttering licks. On "Ten Years Gone," a progression recalling the Beatles' "Dear Prudence" resolves in a beautifully waddling refrain, Page scooping broad and fuzzy chords behind Plant, who sounds a lot like Rod Stewart. Elsewhere, the band trundles out the Marrakech Symphony Orchestra (for "Kashmir"), Ian Stewart's piano and even a mandolin (both for "Boogie with Stu").

Despite some lapses into monotony along the way ("In My Time of Dying," "Kashmir") Physical Graffiti testifies to Page's taste and Led Zeppelin's versatility. Taken as a whole, it offers an astonishing variety of music, produced impeccably by Page. On Physical Graffiti, Led Zeppelin performs rock with creativity, wit and undeniable impact.

They have forged an original style, and they have grown within it; they have rooted their music in hard-core rock & roll, and yet have gone beyond it. They may not be the greatest rock band of the Seventies. But after seven years, five platinum albums and now Physical Graffiti, the world's most popular rock band must be counted among them. -- Jim Miller, RS

While Led Zeppelin could never be blamed for the macho homogeneity of the heavy metal they inspired, Physical Graffiti was an album of truly ambitious scope and lusty abandon. The sixth Zeppelin album, and the first on their own Swan Song label, Physical Graffiti has a nomadic spirit, consisting of sessions interrupted by a bout of illness on John Paul Jones' part and their inability to find a free studio for any length of time.

Its four sides of vinyl allowed Zep to experiment at length. The innovative die-cut sleeve (each window revealing an image printed on the inner sleeve) housed raw, rootsy rock 'n' roll ("Boogie With Stu"), precious folk minatures ("Bron-Yr-Aur"), funk-metal ("Trampled Underfoot"), mordant prog ("In The Light"), and giddy pop ("Down By The Seaside").

Inspired by Page and Plant's recent trip to Morocco, the colossal "Kashmir" was a shuddering beast of faux-mysticism and exotica, John Paul Jones' droning synth-strings forming modal melodies as John Bonham pounded away, monolithically. Epic jam "In My Time Of Dying," written as they recorded it, was a blur of Jimmy Page's murderous slide-guitar, the band roaring like a force of nature (a clear influence on The White Stripes). "Ten Years Gone" was the most surprising -- a touching, sentimental lament from Robert Plant for the love he left to join the band -- Page's closing solo proving how tender Zeppelin could be, when they deigned.

Physical Graffiti is Led Zeppelin's last true peak, and remains a truly dizzying achievement. -- Stevie Chick, 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die

Don't know if it's my copy but that album sounds like pure sludge whenever I play it - I thought Jimmy Page was supposed to be good at this production lark!

Was In The Jungle Groove nommed in this here thing?

too high.

Oh also let me take this opportunity to say that the opening notes of On Some Faraway Beach have always reminded me of the opening notes of 70s classic rock staple Still the Same (which apparently peaked at #4 in 78).

12. THE GROUNDHOGS Split (4753 Points, 33 Votes, 1 #1)
RYM: #78 for 1971, #1852 overall
http://lossless-galaxy.ru/uploads/posts/2009-12/1260205153_groundhogs_-_split_a.jpg
http://open.spotify.com/album/6msxjPbPwh0NXtQJR71JsS
spotify:album:6msxjPbPwh0NXtQJR71JsS

The Groundhogs stretched their success with their next album -- Split. This album kept up with the same musical trajectory previous work has started, but this time focused on Schizophrenia as its main theme. The sound is a bit more grungy and murky, springing to life fantastic Fuzz guitar. The four tracks on side 1 are just numbered 1-4 and really invoke the concept which Split sets to create while the uptempto "Cherry Red" of side 2 became the band's biggest hit ever. This album went into the Top 10 as well. R. Chelled

In the post-Hendrix fallout of the aimless, wandering early '70s, only the Groundhogs harnessed the fury of lost '60s Dream idealism in order to capture on record their very own pre-punk onslaught. Many of the British groups such as Juicy Lucy and Sandoz turned to the post-blues of Zappa and Beefheart for inspiration, but nowadays the results sound as contrived as their mentors; overly intellectual and, ultimately, stridently un-British. London squats of 1971 resounded to the fakery of bogus Delta blues singers, as though only a desert twang could infuse rock'n'roll with a truthful alienation. But, like the obscure genius of London's short-lived Third World War, Tony McPhee's Groundhogs proved that this need not be the case at all, and Split is the album that provided the main body of evidence. This album of paranoid delusion and post-drug trauma was seen by its author as a straight account of a real event. As he said at the time: "I seemed to lose my entire personality … I never talked to anyone, because nothing seemed to be worth saying … I don't reach any conclusions - it's just … what happened, that's all." Both musically and lyrically, Split speaks for a lost time, a nomad time when ideals took to the hoof and musicians stayed on the road rather than confront the fact that the '60s 'war' had been lost. 

Unlike other contemporary bands, economy of notes was not part of the Groundhogs agenda. On Split, more than any other Groundhogs album, they played in a shamanic whirling that shattered and scattered the beat around in several directions at once. The frenzied drumming of Ken Pustelnik reduced the kit to the role of moronic streetgang defenseless against one lone Kung Fu hero. Stun-guitars wah-wah'd and ricochet'd at random against concrete walls, leaving passers by mortally wounded but deliriously happy. Even Pete Cruickshank's bass, that one remaining anchor, was no anchor at all, but a freebass undermining the entire structure. As McPhee explained in a Zigzag interview of the time:

"[Ken] just wallops everything in sight and sometimes I lose him completely. Like I often come back in during a solo and can't work out where he is - so I just have to play a note and let it feed back until I can find my way back in. And Pete doesn't help either, because he's all over the place and he follows me rather than Ken … so when we fall apart, we really fall apart."

The brutal honesty of this quote showcases Tony McPhee's determination to follow his muse to the end. His singing is confused and compassionate, dazed and un-macho at a time of hoot'n'holler chest beating. And despite the wonder-fuelled strengths of Split's first side, each song is reduced to the anonymity of mere numbers: "Split 1", "Split 2", "Split 3" and "Split 4". Yet each is complete and each is anything but anonymous. The furious "Split 1" careers through its description of McPhee's "suicidal derangement" as he termed it with murderous bass and wah guitar interplaying. "Split 2" de-tunes itself into awesome/awful life with a chasm guitar riff that snare shatters into a tearing riff account of McPhee leaping out of bed in black hole terror, before the floor of the room gives way and he ends: "I must get help before I go insane". Ghost Hammond organ chords punctuate the ends of this piece. Song 3 is a chiming clean bell-tone blues which breaks off into formidable noise rock and tears the roof of the sucker, before "Split 4" sees the singer get "down on his knees and pray to the sun". The heathen one-chord flailing of this song is occasionally interrupted by more squeezy wah, but the highway blues riffs and car crash guitars see the track open out into a wide blue horizon'd escape, before McPhee's distorto-feedback bursts into flames like Barry Newman's Dodge Challenger at the end of Vanishing Point.

Side Two opens with their most famous song of all: "Cherry Red". Another sonic clatterwail in the Groundhogs' more-is-more/hit-everything methodology, the propellant bass and plate-spinning cymbals undermine ernie-ernie guitars and a vocal, which shifts from alpha male to soul castrato. McPhee's guitars swallow the rhythm section whole, then he undermines us all by becoming his own female backing singer.

The dark ages ballad that is "A Year in the Life" grubs around in the soil like low church bell-ringers on vacation from Black Sabbath's first album sleeve. Invention and dignity and mystery. "Junkman" is insane. A ramshackle Fall-type Steptoe & Sonic boom of a song, which veers into staccato Guru Guru stop-start, before collapsing into freeform slide-toilet bowl FX guitar for several minutes. Then we hit the last song of all, a blues standard called "Groundhog Blues", approached with the same attitude that inhabited their Blues Obituary album. Drums are here reduced to cardboard box/frontporch patterstomp like Beefheart's "China Pig", while McPhee's blues is a sorrow-drowning greysky of seagull guitars. Split falls to the ground in a massively underplayed style - as though Evel Knievel had chosen to mount a unicycle for the three-minute encore of his hour-long 1000cc show. That's confidence. -- J. Cope

The fourth Groundhogs album is probably their heaviest -- not necessarily measured by the lowing of their low end, but in terms of the mood and subject matter. McPhee became a troubled figure between the previous album and this one -- insular to the point of silence. "My mind and body are two things, not one," from 'Split: Part Three' (the first side of the LP was a four-part title track) is perhaps the crucial lyric in what amounts to a damn notepad of couch confessions. The doomy intro to 'Split: Part Three' shares consecrated ground with 'Black Sabbath', the song, and musically you get the impression the lads might have seen some potential in their high drama; likewise, the disassembled blues of Captain Beefheart. The arrangements get ever more tricksy over these 40 minutes or so, the slide guitar outbursts more wailing -- 'Split: Part Four' exemplifies this even before the free-rock guitar detonation at the end. (It also has a verse where McPhee attempts to hedge his bets by adhering to Islam and Christianity at the same time.)

'Cherry Red', with which Split side two kicks off, is one of those songs that you probably know better than you think you do. It isn't empirically obvious why it's become their best known song, but there's definitely something to be said for getting a bit aled up and nodding, nodding dog-like, to a cyclical bassline which pays no attention to the guitar doing its wrecking ball act over the top. 'A Year In The Life' (was everything that sounded a bit like a Beatles songtitle assumed to be a Beatles reference at the time, I wonder to no-one in particular?) is more of that prototypical Sabbathian gloomery; 'Junkman' is a genuinely weird shift between pensive jangle and antisocial FX buggery which Julian Cope has accurately described as "like the flushing of an electric toilet". Their old mucker John Lee Hooker is hat-tipped at the end via a wheeze through his 'Groundhog Blues', the source of their name. It's faithful but fugly, sounding uncomfortably close and distorted; if written music was the written word, this would be full of missed apostrophes and unnecessary full stops. A fitting enough ending for an album that consistently prickles you one way or another. -- Noel Gardner, The Quietus

[Removed Illegal Image]

I like that album but that is ridiculously high

dj mencap write-up = intrigued, although i'm surprised he says that about beefheart