LOST MANKIND

When SATIN WHALE recorded their second output they have found more to an own discrete style on the one hand but unfortunately they've lost some the power from their debut as well. Thus with good reasons after that one and their Live record "Whalecome" they vanished in the haze more or less. The album starts a bit tame with the first three tracks but with the 11 minute + long "Go Ahead" comes certainly the best and most versatile track on here with great sax and flute play. "Trace Of Sadness" is a powerful organ driven rocker, "Song for Thesy" is very much dominated by flute, reminding a bit to FOCUS and has some nice drum and marimba sections between the vocal parts. Flute plays as well an important role in the final track "Beyond The Horizon" besides the good ol' hammond. Thus overall far more than 50 % of this album can be considered as very good 70s Art Rock. Certainly worth 3 stars!

I´m surprised that 70´s wannabe, or in better terms, 70´s inspired bands like Flower Kings and Spock´s Beard gets a big number of reviews, while some of their matrix gets only 2 !? While classic italian progre seems to get the deserved recognization by the cult progreheads , many german and other countries 70´s gems remains obscure, even in the time of internet comunication facilities. For example a 4 1/2 stars german record like the 1975 MISSING LINK has only. 8 reviews here so far ...

Well I was introduced to Satin Whale around 1977 when the complete side 1 of "Desert Places" played in open air Rio de Janeiro legendary radio station ELDO POP. You may not believe, but at that time you could listen here a whole station dedicated to progressive music - at the most complete sense of the term progressive,that includes innovation and research -, the tracks were chosen from the vinyls like picking up diamonds in the Eldorado, I mean the Eldo Pop producers were highly professional music producers !! Some examples of the "hits" we could be delighted tuning Eldo Pop on : Museo Rosenbach, Utopia, Eloy, PFM, Gentle Giant, Íbis, Mandalaband, Trace, Druid, Greenslade, VDGG, Styx, Roxy Music... WOW the list goes almost to infinity. What was important to the producers was music quality. Thanks God, they were unpartial and NOT influenced by famous trademarks, instead they looked for great music. Even if one record had only some good tracks but overall was a weak record, they (Big Boy and friends) picked up the worth . Example : "Los Angeles" a 5 star track of a 2 star "Smogmagica" Le Orme album. But ELDO POP could not resist to the disco era and finished in 1978.

I agree with reviewer ELDO POP of Satin Whale "Desert Places",also when he says "...All the tracks are extremely energetic and well played, but not very complex....". The side 1 of this album was a well known Eldo Pop radio maniacs "hit", but I was recently surprised by the 1975 "Lost Mankind" album I didn´t know it so far. I don´t remember any track of this record playing in Eldo Pop radio, but I was delighted . The reviewer Hdfich says about it comparing to the previous "... but unfortunately they've lost some the power from their debut ...". To me "Lost Mankind" is not so straight driven like "Desert Places", it´s a more lyrical work : In "Lost Mankind" the tracks are more varied, lyrical and subtle, really a great work., it flows nicely to my ears, not heavily. Strong 4 stars album, on the other hand, If you compare with 2000´s Flower Kings and Spock´s Beard efforts, you could give more to "Lost Mankind" as it´s not a wannabe work, it´s a seminal, original well rooted and hystorical 1975 record. Hey, guys put more reviews about Satin Whale. The 1978 double live record is great too !!

It's hard to tell exactly what happened between this album from German proggers Satin Whale and their knockout first LP `Desert Places' only a year before in 1974. Their powerful Brain label debut was always very accessible but had a tough and constantly heavy bluesy guitar sound to its lengthy jazz-rock compositions, but here, whilst still delivering a very strong album (one that is often considered their best, in fact), `Lost Mankind' mostly sounds like a completely different band altogether. Satin Whale perform in a prouder symphonic style on this one with a streamlined melodic approach and polished production to its more varied, sophisticated and ambitious material, as well as offering much tidier vocals from an American singer no doubt brought in at the time to make the group more appealing to international audiences.

Right from the energetic and groovy opener `Six O'Clock', the change in sound from the debut is instantly noticeable. The pumping sax and trickles of Hammond organ that darted around `Desert Places' are still there, but the piece is far more compact and instantly tuneful backed up by a chorus of female chorus singers, and the lead vocals of Ken Traylor offer crisp English in stark contrast to guitarist/saxophonist/flautist Dieter Roesberg's heavily accented rasp on the debut. The title track `Lost Mankind' is a lightly playful symphonic piece with serene Mellotron, whimsical flute and humming organ that reminds a little in moments of a track like `In the Mountains' from Earth and Fire's second album `Song of the Marching Children', and `Reverie' is a pretty piano and organ interlude. Then it's all guns blazing for the eleven minute tour-de-force `Go Ahead', jammed with honking infectious sax blasts, jazzy darting flute, red-hot blazing guitar wailing and the Hammond organ out in full-blast, all woven to clever reprising themes. There's so much variety delivered with exemplary skill throughout this one, and it also serves as a fine showcase for new drummer Wolfgang Hieronymi.

The flip side's `Trace Of Sadness' is a relentless and boisterous Hammond-drenched rocker, `Midnight Stone' perhaps resembles a swooning E.L.P-like ballad where Ken's vocals almost remind of John Wetton of King Crimson, and breezy flute flits in and out of soft rocker `Song For 'Thesy' with jazz overtones and organ-driven regal bombast that echoes Focus, M. Efekt and Jethro Tull. Closer `Beyond The Horizon' again comes close to the first album with its extended instrumental stretches of snappy drumming, waves of break-neck frantic Hammond organ runs, joyous flute and bluesy swagger-drenched electric guitar wrangling, and the subtle and skilfully executed tempo-change sprints reveal again what a talented bunch of musicians these guys were.

`Lost Mankind would prove to be a real one-off from the group, with both the heavy Hammond-dominated rocking of the debut and grander symphonic fancy of this one largely removed by their more straight-forward and frequently AOR next album `As a Keepsake' in 1976, and so too singer Traylor as the proper band themselves resumed the vocals from then on (it would actually be very interesting to learn the circumstances as to how he came to be involved with the band in the first place!). The punchy debut might be their real special one, but `Lost Mankind' has stronger playing, ardent ambition and energy to spare, and if you're new to this superb German band, this would be a fine place to start.

Four stars.