RUNNING IN THE SUMMER NIGHT

This formation was one of the first Swedish progressive/psychedelic rock bands. In the autumn of '67 they released their eponymous debut-album, the fine blend of jazz, blues and rock got a lot of positive reviews but the album sold not very well. After being support- act for ZAPPA'S MOTHER OF INVENTION and The JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE the band broke up in the spring of '68. Early '69 a new line up with prime mover Mecki Bodemark (organ and vocals) released a second LP entitled "Running In The Summer Night", it was also released in the USA and followed by an American tour were the band shared bills with The BYRDS, SLY & The FAMILY STONE, Paul BUTTERFIELD and JETHRO TULL. After their third LP entitled "Marathon" the band finally dissolved in the fall of '71. Thanks to the Swedish (prog) rock label Mellotronen we can enjoy the second album "Running In The Summer Night". The music on the 14 songs (including two bonus tracks) is very similar to VANILLA FUDGE (soulful vocals and Hammond organ), The JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE (wah-wah guitar) and CREAM (powerful guitar and propulsive rhythm-section). The melodic progressive mix of rock, blues and jazz and the solos on guitar (often fiery) and Hammond (bluesy and swirling) sound very tasteful with lots of changing atmospheres in that typical Sixties mood. Not only the music is great, also the artwork: a digipack triple-foldout-cover with an inlay info book.

Wow is that jimi hendrix on vocals? Kidding of course but Mecki Bodemark seriously sounds a lot like him in a lot of the tracks. These guys were defiantly inspired by JHE and do a darn good job playing the whole psych thing. The heavy organs remind me of a typical US/england hard rock band. the bass is nice and heavy too, really ancors the music. Not a bad cd at all.

What an awful album!!! If it weren't for a guitar player who knows how to play at least one scale properly this wouldn't even merit one star! There is nothing on this album but a ton of post Vanilla Fudge pseudo psychedelic noise and I love psychedelic music! Mecki Bodemark's horrid imitation of Jimi Hendrix is so lame that I place him and Yngwie Malmsteen together as the worst insult to Swedish music ever created, only Mecki does all the damage with his two note organ riffs and suffocating voice that fails at being a super sexy Hendrix and sounds more like a croak and a groan than sexy. Don't ask me what songs are worse than others, the problem here is there are no songs. From track 1 on this is nothing but sludge. You'd think a producer could salvage something out of this slag heap, but no such luck. I mean, this is so bad that it is an insult to the listener and I got rid of my copy as fast as I could. I also suffered a headache for two days after playing this. Don't get the wrong idea, I played this album a bunch of times before deciding on my harsh words and harsh thoughts about the album, but you can only give something a fair chance before you realize you are being tricked by what it not even music! From the awful beginning of "Sweet Swede Girls" things just get more and more obnoxious until you either are laughing hysterically or are taking the needle off with a sick feeling in your stomach. I DO give credit to the guitar player in this band, he plays a couple nice solos here and there, so don't blame him for how bad this sounds. The rhythm section sound non existant here, there's nothing for them to play in terms of tight rhythms because everything is formless. If you want loud in your face mind bending music you can do better than this and find something more substantial in a Hendrix record or try to find the excellent album Stormvarning by fellow Swedes Storm which is sung in Swedish, but that's much preferable to here where the lyrics don't make any sense and the vocals are so accented he might as well not sing in English. Don't waste your money or your time here, because there's nothing that even qualifies as music. If you're a Desperate collector or fan, this is for you only, only don't be a fool like me and buy the album, buy the CD instead!