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Robert Wyatt - Rock Bottom CD (album) cover

ROCK BOTTOM

Robert Wyatt

 

Canterbury Scene

4.29 | 1002 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

Xonty
5 stars Rock Bottom is an outstandingly unique jazz-infused prog rock album from the Canterbury Sceene by Robert Wyatt, shortly after he was paralysed from the waist down in 1973. The album starts off with the luxurious and almost otherworldy "Sea Song", with beautiful lyrics related to the sea (as with most of the album), an intriguing piano break in the middle, and ending with Wyatt's emotional vocals calling out.

The following song "A Last Straw" has a similar feel to the earlier song, but takes a couple more listens to fully grasp the greatness of the song. With possibly an even has a better musical atmosphere than "Sea Song", "A Last Straw" is overall another great song. This then becomes "Little Red Riding Hood Hit The Road", with an undescribable mildly chaotic melancholy jazz feel.

Starting the second side of the album, the beautiful "Alifib" enters with soft tunes for the intro, followed by sombre (in a good way) and intricate lyrics. The song morphs into the sort of evil twin of a song "Alifie", with excellent squeaking saxophones and Robert's extraordinarily unhuman voice uttering the same, thought-provoking lyrics. The album then ends on the majestic "Little Red ROBIN Hood Hit The Road", with all the brilliance of previous songs as well as Mike Oldfield's screaming guitars rolling around the song. This is definitely more of a rock song than the previous songs. The song is incredibly British, starting on the lyrics "In The Garden Of England" and with Ivor Cutler's Scottish brogue singing the lyrics, adding more diversity and flavour to the album, as well as his concertina. The song is abruptly interrupted by a laugh that I always dread to hear, because I know that it means the end of the album...

A-. A much needed addition to anyone's prog rock collection, very underrated.

Sea Song - ***** A Last Straw - **** Little Red Riding Hood Hit The Road - ***** Alifib - **** Alifie - **** Little Red Robin Hood Hit The Road - **** (But the atmosphere of the album makes it go up to a 5*)

Xonty | 5/5 |

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