AXE

4.5 stars. One of the absolute best albums I've heard in this late 60's psyche style with those typical 60's sounding female vocals. She has a higher pitched voice than I'm used to hearing from this era but certainly sings in that style. I really like her and the guitar is incredible, fuzzed out or not this guy can play and does! A lot of controversy around this record simply called "Music" and you'd be better to read Sagi's review on the details. It was released as a demo and then the record label Kissing Spell got a hold of it and radically changed some stuff without the band's permission. That was released in 1993.

They were a 5 piece out of England no keyboards but two guitarists with one of them playing acoustic. The band covers a LOVE song from "Forever Changes" called "A House Is Not A Motel". Uptempo and catchy with vocals leading the way. Drums and guitar are great especially the latter. My favourite song is "Strange Sights & Crimson Nights". Kind of folky to start but man those vocals. I like when that beat kicks in around a minute. The guitar is so tripped out as we get a long instrumental section. She's back around 4 minutes in as we get the intro repeated along with the other themes. The guitar is amazing here. That instrumental "Dark Vision" certainly is dark and man again the guitar is so impressive. I'm a big fan of "The Child Dreams" where we get some tape manipulation and a haunting soundscape. It clears as vocals and guitar take over and away we go in this 9 minute psychedelic beauty.

I'm just rating the music and yes I'm a huge fan of what was done here.

Another one of those rare late 60's hidden gems buried for about 25 years. Axe managed to distiguish themselves from other bands and rise from the underground scene to the point of recording an album and opening for Free, Wishbone Ash and The Who. Their heavy, acid psych style is a good example of the british psychedelic underground scene and is a product of its time although this style of music already emerged about three or four years earlier. There's a lot of confusion regarding the band and their recordings, even today there isn't much information about their story, except for an interview done with the band's guitar player which doesn't set things straight. So here's the deal, Axe were formed in 1968 in Northampton as Axe Music but was mostly known as just Axe. After some line up changes the band settled down with Vivienne Jones as lead vocalist and Tom Bradford as lead guitar player, that line up lasted until 1971 and was the one that recorded the LP. The band then changed their name to Crystalline with the advice of their manager that their name Axe Music sounded like music publishers. They entered the studio to record a demo tape in 1970 and not 1969 like is considered, they recorded 5 tracks in one afternoon, originally only about 12 copies were made of the acetate, without an album title. That recording was resurrected and released by UK label Kissing Spell in 1993. The label didn't just release the original demo recording, but unnecessarily edited parts of the songs to make the album sound trippier, and also to lengthen the album for a worthwhile release without the band's consent, I'll expand on that later. The CD contains 9 tracks with 41 minutes while the demo recording is only 26 minutes of music. Not only there are errors regarding the titles of the songs but the CD liner notes doesn't mention the songs were altered. Only in 2012 the spanish label Guerssen released the original demo true to the source under the name Crystalline, released both on CD and Vinyl.

The music of Axe is rooted in 60's psychedelia, the best comparison would be Jefferson Airplane also due to the resemblance of Axe's vocalist Vivienne Jones and Grace Slick, Jones's kind of folkish clear and pensive voice really shines throughout the album adding a lot to the trippy soundscapes by the band, another vocalist that comes to mind here is Annie Haslam although not in the same level of course. While the rhythm section is quite simple drummer Steve Gordon, bassist Mick Knnobs and rhythm acoustic guitar player Roger Hilliard are doing a good job. The real highlight except for the vocals is Bradford's playing and sound, fans will lick their fingers of his melting heavily fuzzed out guitar tone. The songwriting is ok not exactly adventurous but still good.

I'll go over the songs to highlight the differences between the CD and original recording. The album starts with Here To There which is the first 40 seconds from the song The Child Dreams originally named Here From There, so you're gonna encounter this part twice. Ahinam (take 2) is a two and half minutes instrumental part taken from the song A House is Not a Motel mixed with a phaser effect, it's a great soaring guitar solo with a good driving rhythm section, you'll have to listen to this part twice too while playing the CD. Another Sunset, Another Dawn is also the first song on the demo, it's a typical 60's psych tune with Vivienne's distictive vocals approach and some dirty guitars leads, nice overall. The mis-titled The Child Dreams (supposed to be Here From There) is the main piece and the only song coming near as being progressive,it's also the longest. It starts with some hazy vocals and reverse recorded sounds, very trippy, it continues quietly with Vivienne's vocals creating a psychedelic atmosphere and some acoustic noodling, not a fan of this part it is quite amateurish. Fortunately Bradford's guitar saves the day with another long trippy solo until the end. The Cd adds more than a minute to the end of the song of reverse sounds like in the beginning. A House is Not a Motel and Peace of Mind are more of the same acid psych tunes with some tasty electric guitar playing and great singing. Both songs appear in these versions in the demo. Dark Vision is another joke cutting two and half minutes this time from The Child Dreams and again adding phaser effect. Strange Sights & Crimson Nights in its original name Crimson Nights is the same as appears in the demo. This time a slower psychedelic tune leaning on Bradford's gritty guitar sounds. Here To There is another title error, it's a live version of The Child Dreams with a rough sound quality adding a flute to the mix

So overall this is a nice psych album, the progressive elements are very mild, I believe fans of the 60's underground psych scene will adore this. It doesn't elevate to great heights but it certainly has its qualities and don't forget its historic value. I think it's better to get the Crystalline CD which is exactly the demo released in 1970 rather than this butchered unnecessary edited version. 3 stars is enough.

I found their song "The Child Dreams" quite unexpectedly, and it really sent me to some kind of heavily psychedelic dream. The album couldn't disappoint me as well. The singer's voice is somehow typical female voice that you could imagine in prog folk scene of 70's (imagine The Pentangle, Mellow Candle and stuff like that). The music is without a doubt rich, progressive and innovative. My favorite song is "Another Sunset, another dawn" which really stands out as the most melodic and catchy track with some beautiful guitar moments. Only the intro "Here to here" might have been unnecessary track as it's a small part of "The child dreams" and also appear in live version so may get boring when you finish the listening. :) Anyway, it's definately a good choice for those who look for a bit "more proggy" kind of folk and most recommended!

This record contains quite standard US-oriented psychedelic movement cover songs performed on stage, and the focus and skills of the group is not in my opinion as good as on their studio album, which contains their own compositions. Maybe the session was performed on some small festival or party, and the set was probably nice to experience when being an actual participant. The audio quality isn't very good either, being a late sixties concert taping transcribed from a vinyl I guess. From the songs, I could mention Jefferson Ariplane covers, a band and songs which I really love, but here the band doesn't reach the fury of the original performers, and also the lady singer's voice fits better to more tender tunes I would claim. "On the Road Again" continues American hippy traits with repetitive amplified blues, which is actually a circular reference as an excuse for the quite fun monotonous jamming sequence in the middle, this reaching some tribal heights and bringing some great elements here. The raw saxophone sound and slightly clumsy jazzy wanderings also remind slightly King Crimson's "Get Thy Bearings" capture from their Epitaph record. Traffic's "Mr Fantasy" starts as a slacker blues, but contains a faster psychedelic jazzy sequence, though the changes from the composed themes are slightly awkward. The male singer also performs vocals here, and saxophone is also present. The Neil Young composition "Cinnamon Girl" carries on the same phase with boys singing and rocking a quite bland performance. Judy Collins' song "Pretty Polly" introduces Vivienne again to the microphone, and this fuzzy capture of amplified folk gem with improvised passages is one of the personal highlights here for me. Tim Rose's "Morning Dew" is also quite fun aggressive tune contrasted with tender voice and joyful horn solo.

I was very curious of finding this record, as the studio album these fellows did hit like an axe to my head. I enjoyed this record also, but only partially, and would not detect it as very impressive masterpiece. Thus I would not recommend spending your money to it before pre- listening it first carefully. But I would suggest focusing your attention to this band's fine studio record instead.

This album hit like an axe to my head, though some characteristics of the record restrained me to give it five stars. Still many songs here fit to my personal musical tastes as best as anything in psychedelic music style can do. The short intro is distributed among the album creating flashbacks of the theme, and the whole song can be heard as a poorer sound quality live version in the end of the record. The voice of the singer is soft, pleasant and untalented in classical sense, though she hits to the key well and I Iike her voice really much. The singing is present only in more calmer moments of the songs, so the band gets much instrumental space to hit the harder acid rock gear on, and the do it very well. The compositions are quite simple, more like basic frames for free playing. Also the melodic themes are very pretty, but the band does not have very broad scope, and many tunes sound like variations of quite same idea. The sound could be described as a mixture of early Jefferson Airplane, and both live jammings of Cream and The Jimi Hendrix Experience, spiced with some acid folk influences. And do not be tricked by potential association of the hit songs of the mentioned groups, Axe's music is in my opinion very experimental and certainly progressive, like the adventorous moments of the bands I compared are also. If you like good quality psychedelic stoned-out rock which expands to higher levels, leaving the fences of commercial rock standards behind, search this album and enjoy! Personal highlights are mantralike long "The Child Dreams", growing tension in very delightful way. With little more variation to the composed melodies and slighlty more better lyrical content, and maybe focusing even yet more to the hazy improvistaional playing which is present in maybe 75% of the music, this would be a real masterpiece. About the mannerism, "Strange Sights & Crimson Nights" sounds quite much like another arangement of great song "Another Sunset, Another Dawn". But even with these few lacks, this is anyhow very recommendable album to the fans of this kind of music..