Off The Shelf
So I originally bought this as a second hand vinyl record on the strength of the cover art, which I use to do a lot when exploring early 70's music. Something about it just said to me, "this could be some quite good and interesting rock music from this period". A period I was quite interested in at the time.
So I get it home and drop the needle on to the start of the first track. I'm somewhere in my early 20's and haven't much experience of Progressive rock yet. The music starts almost inaudibly as some oriental chimes start a slow crescendo, after a time giving way to some violin and mild guitar feedback before suddenly I'm assaulted by one of the heaviest most bombastic guitar riffs ever, one so heavy that it makes Black Sabbath sound like folk musicians. I'm floored, this is incredible, especially to a young bloke who gets excited by this kind of guitar music. The Riff is short lived and repeated again soon but after that doesn't make another appearance in this 13 minute opus, which covers quite a lot of ground in its duration. A full on introduction to Progressive Rock a-la King Crimson. That Riff still impresses to this day and the jazzy and semi classical overtones of the rest of the track are impressive also.
The next two tracks are a bit more subdued and somewhat shorter with a more folksy sound and also accompanied by some vocals. I find them a little lame sounding and something of an anti-climax after that experience of the title track.,Exiles is the better of the two with some atmospheric ambience sounding sections between vocals. The rest of the album is almost as impressive as the opening, getting quite experimental in places but pretty cool neither-the-less. Rating 4.5/5.
