ARZACHEL

I recall when I bought this album on the day of its release. 2 pals of mine and myself used to meet late Friday afternoon with our new pay packets and descend on a little specialist prog shop we knew.

The shop ordered just 3 copies of this album and played us some of it. All of us bought it cleaning them out in one fell swoop.

Before it was released on CD a good vinyl copy could fetch £600 as Steve Hillage fans sought a copy for their hero's involvement. Was it his 1st recorded work?

First thing is the cover which claims the album is by a group of UK and African musicians living in London. Actually it's the Canterbury-sound band Egg with Steve Hillage added on guitar.

The first 3 of the 6 tracks could easily be Egg too. Track 1 is "Garden of Earthly Delights". It's a bouncy tune that could easily have been an Elizabethan folk song and a good opener. The prominent organ sound is a bit of an Egg giveaway.

Track 2 "Azathoth" sounds like a pseudo-religious piece (the organ enhances this feeling) and keeps the quality up before "Queen St Gang", an instrumental based on the theme tune of the childrens' series of the same name, completes the lighter side of the album.

Then the heavy non-Egg stuff takes off - the original Side 1 ends with the best thing here, a song strangely called "Leg". It builds from a tuneful organ intro before launching into a big romp with a thundering bass line. Love it!

Side 2 only has 2 tracks and continues with the heavier sound from track 4. "Clean Innocent Fun" is the better of the 2 songs here. It's 10minutes long and has some good prog heavy sounds but track 4 (Metempsychosis) is a bit self-indulgent at 17minutes though it has its moments. It's another instrumental with a dated psychedelic feel from the late 60s.

All said, a very good album with a well-known claim to fame as early Hillage.

However, I wonder if it has another claim to fame? Led Zeppelin had produced their first LP a bit earlier but Deep Purple had not yet recorded "In Rock" and were still in their pseudo-classical mode. Did the heavy organ-laden sound on this album influence Deep Purple's change of direction the following year?

4 stars as the last track is a bit overlong and a bit of a mishmash.