DAY OF PHOENIX

And while were name dropping this was produced by Tony Reeves of COLOSSEUM, GREENSLADE, JOHN MAYALL'S BLUESBREAKERS and others. Tony also produced BURNIN RED IVANHOE's album that was also released in 1970 in Denmark. What I liked about this album right away was how adventerous it is and having three of the five tracks between 11 1/2 minutes and 14 minutes certainly gives you room to experiment. The short "If You Ask Me" is the most intense track with almost protest-like vocals and dirty sound. The album closes with the 70 second "Tick-Tack" with acoustic guitar and vocals standing out.

But it's those three long tracks that we all came to hear starting with the title track to open the record at 11 1/2 minutes. It opens with a nice little groove with bass and drums as the guitar comes in over top. Vocals join in and the chorus is more passionate each time. It turns experimental after 3 minutes in various ways as it plays out until it's almost silent at 6 1/2 minutes. Then it starts to rebuild including dual guitars at 7 minutes then back to our regular programming with vocals and all after 10 minutes.

"Cellophane 1&2" is over 13 1/2 minutes and begins in such a warm folky manner. That changes as the vocals and everything else get amped up and the guitar becomes prominent. Love that guitar 10 1/2 minutes in and the bass that follows. Vocals are back late to end it. Lastly "Mind Funeral" with the guests might be the best track on here. Acoustic guitar, oboe, vocals and more as it picks up with drums and electric guitar. The tempo continues to change as contrasts continue. It's a little insane 11 minutes in as the guitar starts to light it up.

Not in the same class for me as SECRET OYSTER and CORONARIAS DANS but those are more in the Jazz department while this is psychedelia for the most part.

In the "Wide Open N-Way" we hear some proto-prog guitar soloing, ambitious composing and straightforward rhythms. Slight dual-guitar similarity to Wishbone Ash. They are plenty of instrumental moments to keep attention to listening.

We hear some hard-rock elements in the rocking "Cellephane". "If you ask me" is a shorter song but very intensive and bordering on jazz-rock with its chords. "Mind funeral" aptly contains horror-like sounding parts with dissonant piano, wild bass and guitar soloing and doomy atmosphere.

Recommended for fans of progressive psychedelic rock.

The "Wide Open N-Way (1970)" album is a great heavy psychadelic and at times semi-progressive rock album with long jam-like compositions featuring lots of guitar solos and inventive playing by the two guitarists in the band. the rhythm section is adventurous and tight playing and the vocals are pretty decent too. It´s widely regarded as a classic Danish heavy psychadelic/progressive rock album from the 70s. "The Neighbour's Son (1972)", which featured three members of the, at the time, recently disbanded Burnin´ Red Ivanhoe, is on the other hand widely regarded as a disappointment with it´s more regular vers/chorus structured radio friendly rock tracks.

The idea to release the compilation is great as the two original LP versions of the albums were out of print at the time and as there was still a demand for the albums the decision made sense. The same can be said about the decision to release the compilation on CD in 2000. Quality wise it´s the material from "Wide Open N-Way (1970)" that takes the prize while most of the material from "The Neighbour's Son (1972)" are decent but nothing special. But overall it´s a good quality product and a 3.5 star (70%) rating is warranted.

Unfortunately the band have changed their style a lot since "Wide Open N-Way (1970)". The tracks are (safe for a few exceptions) vers/chorus structured rock songs completely lacking the dark, heavy, psychadelic and semi-progressive nature of "Wide Open N-Way (1970)". The musicianship are obviously on a very high level and compared to the debut that part is actually more professionally executed. The music is still very guitar driven and it´s obvious that it´s two guitarists that are the main men behind the project. The issue here is the songwriting. The only track on the album that´s a bit adventurous is the 6:37 minutes long "Paradox". It´s also the longest track on the album and it´s the track that reminds me the most of the material from "Wide Open N-Way (1970)". The rest is not bad but it´s pretty unremarkable.

The sound production which is courtesy of Tony Reeves (Colosseum, Greenslade) is professional and well sounding. Pleasant and organic. So in many ways "The Neighbour's Son" is a quality release by Day of Phoenix. The compositions are just generally not memorable enough or intriguing enough to leave a lasting impression. A 2.5 - 3 star (55%) rating is warranted.

Day of Phoenix initially started out as a blues rock band but after Cy Nicklin left their style took a more experimental and psychadelic turn. The music on "Wide Open N-Way" is a combination of west coast psychadelic rock and semi-progressive rock with a touch of jazz rock. The music is guitar driven and the two guitarists Karsten Lyng and Ole Prehn compliment each other brilliantly throughout the album. Hans Lauridsen´s vocals are pretty strong and as a plus the Danish accent is actually not that obvious (which is something that can´t be said about many Danish bands singing English language lyrics in the 60s/70s). The rhythm section with drummer Henrik Friis and bassist/pianist Erik Stedt (also a member of Danish psychadelic rock act Beefeaters) are also very capable musicians (Erik Stedt sadly died in 1971 and Day of Phoenix disbanded for a while).

The music is generally pretty dark and with three out of five tracks on the album which feature a playing time exceeding 10 minutes there´s lots of room for long jamming guitar solos. The music is well composed but sometimes suffer a bit because of the experiments. Sometimes the experiments are successful but other times they just don´t work that well. The greatest highlight is "Mind Funeral" but the other two lengthy tracks "Wide Open N-Way" and "Cellophane #1 & 2" also stand out.

The album is produced by Tony Reeves (Colosseum, Greenslade) and received quite a bit of attention as a result of that. That´s not to say that the music isn´t of a high quality because it certainly is but the choice of producer was definitely wise. The sound production is organic and very well sounding. There are a couple of technical playing errors featured in the music. Something which probably would have been fixed on a more modern production. Maybe it was a money issue or limited studio time but it gives the album an unpolished quality that you don´t hear often in music today. It´s quite charming really.

Overall "Wide Open N-Way" is a good quality release by Day of Phoenix, and anyone into guitar driven West Coast rock with progressive leanings are recommended to give it a listen. Along with contemporary artists like The Young Flowers, The Savage Rose, Beefeaters, Alrune Rod, Burnin´ Red Ivanhoe, and Steppeulvene, they held the Danish flag high on a rock scene that unfortunately didn´t notice them outside the borders of their homeland (at least not enough for them to break through outside Denmark). So while "Wide Open N-Way" isn´t a perfect release by any means, it´s still an entertaining and occasionally intriguing listen, and a 3.5 - 4 star (75%) rating isn´t all wrong.

A little related background info from the Danish scene (and Cy Nicklin) for those who have an interest in that:

Cy Nicklin who was British had started his music career in the Danish based folk duo Cy & Maia with Danish singer Maia Aarskov whom he had met at a dinner party in 1965. The duo later became a trio and was renamed Cy, Maia & Robert, when Danish based French musician Robert Jean Francis Lelièvre who had deserted the French army in 1962 and lived in political exile in Denmark, joined the two. Cy & Maia recorded the single "Portland Town/Chickens Are Coming" in 1966 and it was the only recording they made as a duo before Robert Lelièvre joined them. Cy, Maia & Robert recorded their debut album "On the Scene" in 1966 and their second album "Out of Our Times" was released in 1967. They also released three singles in that period in "Green Rocky Road/Harvest of Hate (1966)", "A Church Is Burning/Take a Look Inside (1967)", and "Cheers Dears/Natural Man (1967)". The latter was recorded using the Maia & Full Limit monicker. Cy Nicklin and Robert Lelièvre also played guitar on Scottish folk singer Alex Campbell's 1967 album "Alex Campbell At the Tivoli Gardens". Cy, Maia & Robert split up in November of 1967.

Robert Lelièvre then went on and recorded an album titled "Alliance (1968)" with Scottish folk singer Iain Campbell and then went to England where he recorded a solo album "The Hare (1968 or 1969)" and was signed by Polydor as a songwriter and studio musician. Robert Lelièvre came back to Denmark in June of 1969 where he teamed up with Cy Nicklin again (who had just left Day of Phoenix with whom he had recorded the single "Tell Me /I Think It's Gonna Rain Today (1969)") and formed the folk/rock band High Crossfield. That band later evolved into the progressive rock act Pan whose sole self-titled album "Pan (1970)" is widely considered as one of the most important progressive rock ( proto-prog) albums in Denmark. Robert Lelièvre sadly suffered from depression and took his own life in August of 1973 (Pan disbanded in 1972). Cy Nicklin had left the band before the recording of "Pan (1970)" and formed Culpeper's Orchard who is also considered one of the most important bands on the Danish progressive rock scene.

Musically much less enthralling, DotP plays tracks between 1:55 and 6:36 sounding like a flute-less Jethro Tull or Free, but without the songwriting skill. Even the longer tracks don't allow much room for musical interplay and there is little to remind us of the patchy but enthralling debut album. It's even hard for me to give you a preferred song, because they ll sound a bit alike, but the closing track is always a good one, because it sounds so nice once the raucus stopped. .

Best avoided if you ask me, this straight rock album is probably as interesting as are the later Midnight Sun album, also released on Sonet.

The album starts with two lengthy numbers that are more improvs than epic, with their West Coast double guitar attack, with the enigmatic title track being a collage of a few clumsily assembled parts, the middle one sounding like a garage band days Byrds or Dead. Quite messy really, but the group sounds fresh enough that they can be forgiven easily. However I'm wondering how Tony reeves could let that by, knowing how Colosseum was way more self-demanding. The following Cellephane is split into two parts, but it doesn't seem to make them anymore tidier or tighter, but it's clearly the band's best moment on this album

The flipside is a bit more uneven (and much shorter despite having one more song) with the rockier If You Ask Me (fairly straight forward), the ultra short Tick Tack and yet another 12-minutes track promisingly titled Mind Funeral. Obviously the album's other highlight, Mind Funeral sees the appearance of future Secret Oyster's Knudsen on piano and Ulrik Jensen on oboe, both giving a demented jazzy

Days Of Phoenix will find itself invaded by ex-BRI members, following that group's first line-up break up, with another future Secret Oyster Jess Staehr playing on bass. But for now, their debut album had enough interesting moments to make this album definitely worth the hearing while not being essential.

The two Cellophane parts are noticeably headed by Karsten Lyng and Ole Prehn delivering an excellent accentuated virtuoso twin guitar work. And then Mind Funeral has to be mentioned - they didn't take the song title literally by the way - as for the compositional aspect at least. The song consists of two different moods - first the solid westcoast psych touch. And then the band takes a deep breath in the second half and offers a wonderful jamming jazzy part which you may not have expected when listening for the first time.

'Wide Open N-Way' is not plain psych/space music - you should brace yourself for sophisticated psychedelic based rock with some jazz elements by contrast - sometimes even eclectic and ahead of the times in 1970. Highly recommended because absolutely enjoyable even nearly 40 years later!