COMUS

The first spooky song "Diana" conjures up a dark satanic image of nefarious goings-on at a witches coven. The focus of this supernatural hocus pocus hokum is mainly on the unsettling violins and off-kilter harmonising from the witches choir giving the music a dark macabre sinister edge. It's creepy and disturbing folk (although that's no reflection on the band members themselves) which is very reminiscent of the eerie folk music in the paganistic horror movie, "The Wicker Man" starring Edward Woodward and Christopher Lee. The hair-raising lyrics to "Diana" are pretty scary too:- "Lust he follows virtue close, Through the steaming woodlands, His darkened blood through bulging veins, Through the steaming woodlands." ..... It's enough to send a shiver up the spine and give you a touch of the heebie-jeebies. You might be tempted to leave the lights on at night after listening to this creepy witches brew of Halloween music, but try not to have nightmares. The next song "The Herald" is a 12-minute Psych-Folk masterpiece, which still has the same sinister air of a midnight mass at a witches coven, but it's a strangely beautiful song at the same time. The music is carried along on a wave of gently rippling guitar strings and violins with the hauntingly-beautiful vocals of Bobbie Watson sounding somehow sweet and angelic, so maybe she's a harmless white witch and not a dark satanic black witch after all. If the first two songs haven't already given you the creeps though, then the third song "Drip Drip" surely will. The music is a 10-minute-long barrelling ghost train ride, ending in a helter-skelter Psych- Folk frenzy, featuring some absolutely manic violin playing and tortured and strangulated vocals from lead singer Roger Wootton. The lyrics are very dark and disturbing too so I won't recite them here, other than to say, the "Drip Drip" refers to the drips of blood from a hanging corpse. Enough said. This is definitely not the kind of folk album you'd want to buy your dear old aunt for Christmas as it'd probably scare the living daylights out of her.

The seven and a half minute "Song to Comus" opens Side Two. It's a dark and disturbing tale of a damsel in distress having her virginity forcibly taken by the monstrous Comus of the title. The music is an infectious fluty Prog-Folk number which sounds like a mad and unhinged version of Jethro Tull. The demented vocalist is clearly going ever so slightly mad here, sounding like a deranged inmate on day release from a lunatic asylum, where "care in the community" clearly hasn't worked. It brings to mind the manic 1966 novelty record "They're Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!" ..... Watch out! There's a werewolf about in the next song "The Bite". This guitar, violin and flute melody gallops along at an absolutely insane pace, with the musicians barely coming up for air in this manic 5-minute psychedelic freak-out. The dark mood deepens with "Bitten", a brief 2-minute instrumental, featuring the lonely sound of a mournful violin. The final song "The Prisoner" is another manic manifestation of deeply disturbing music, which takes us on a terrifying paranoid schizophrenic ride to hell. It's quite literally a tale of sheer lunacy, because it's all about a disturbed mental patient being given electro-convulsive "therapy" against their will. It's shocking! "The Prisoner" is pretty scary, but it's probably not as scary as the thought of watching back to back episodes of Prisoner Cell Block H.

Dare you enter the weird and sinister world of Comus? There's nowt so Wyrd as the paganistic freaky folk of Comus. This unsettling and disturbing Psych-Folk music is as unnerving as a stay in a haunted house on the night of a full moon during a thunderstorm at Halloween. This frightfully good album contains more Black Magic than a box of dark chocolates. It's a dark descent into madness, death, witchcraft and supernatural fairy tales, but it's also a very good album too. "First Utterance" might not appeal to Prog-Rock fans generally, but if you're in the mood for a scary Friday the 13th outbreak of infectious freaky folk, then this might just be the album for you. Just make sure you secure all of the doors and windows before settling down to listen to this dark and menacing album in the middle of the night, because you never know who or what might be lurking out there in the darkness.

The mini-suite "The Herald" (12:12), perhaps the most important piece of the Lp, it starts as psychedelic folk, acid-folk, with female voices you do not know if demonic or angelic, after 3'40'' the song fades and then starts again with guitar arpeggio, then violin that becomes melancholy and poignant, beautiful melody (great work by Colin Pearson), then about 9'40'' that is after 6 minutes from the pause, it starts the initial entries again. The structure is verse - chorus (of higher hue), then central instrumental piece, then again verse - chorus. Rating 8,5.

"Drip Drip" (10:54) begins with a beautiful acoustic guitar arpeggio, but soon the track becomes dissonant, high-pitched lyiser singing, Wootton sings almost as Roger Chapman, and the listening becomes difficult, the percussions that in the previous piece were not there, here are very important and at about 6'30', after a very dissonant piece, it changes the melody, comes the percussion, the melody remains in the background and is stretched, deformed, the music comes to parorosism. Rating 7.5/8.

End of Side A.

The fourth piece, "Song To Comus (7:30), proceeds with the distorted paroxysmal climate of the previous one, the song resembles that of Jethro Tull, it is interesting as Comus manage to combine the melody with this hallucinatory paroxysmal mood that at times seems almost demented, and one wonders how long they can keep this inspiration so cohesive and obsessively centered on this hallucinatory atmosphere. Rating 8.

"The Bite (5:26)" is very fast, the rhythm is sustained, and again we listen to the continuum of the same pagan poem, dark mood, demonic sound. Rating 8. 6. Bitten (2:15) is an instrumental piece, acoustic, whose atmosphere is terrible and frightening, and it is a good idea to put a break, a short instrumental piece after songs so similar. Rating 8.

The last piece, "The Prisoner" (6:14), begins at a rhythm, similar to Diana, percussion, female voices, Wootton's hoarse voice, the music is so homogeneous with the previous ones that it adds nothing in terms of musical material, and closes an album all too granite, dense, almost monotonous as the Comus have eviscerated their musical material in a capillary way and the album ends with the pastoral, acidic, folk, hallucinatory psychedelic obsession that crystallized the album. Rating 7,5.

it is a masterpiece of inspiration and especially of intensity rather than broad views because it focuses on a single style, a single mood, a single sound, a single atmosphere developed very well, but at the same time this intensity crystallized on a single atmosphere also determines the limit of the LP, which certainly falls into what I consider real masterpieces but not in the absolute masterpieces of (prog) rock.

Medium quality of the songs: 8. Rating 9+, Five Stars.

The album went under the radar by even the band members themselves. They, themselves, had not even known what a gem they had produced. After "First Utterance" hit the market in 1971, the band quickly splintered and scattered off into their own respective worlds. Roger Wootton would continue the brand name COMUS only to fall into the commercial trappings of the music industry and released the utterly disappointing followup "To Keep From Crying" four years later. After that fiasco he was enticed to fall even deeper into the lame-o-sphere by recording solo projects that utilized cheap poppy calypso and cheesy middlebrow compositions of mediocrity. By the mid-70s, it was inconceivable that COMUS ever released one of the most renowned cult albums in the entire history of music. However, that one album of pure genius and divine intervention did not go unnoticed. Over the ensuing decades, "First Utterance" became one of the most revered albums of the entire dark freak folk universe.

As the decades elapsed, new generations who experienced "First Utterance" for the first time were floored by the sheer intensity of the album which led to a new generation of progressive folk inspired music that emerged in the form of Mikael Åkerfeldt adopting lyrics from "Drip Drip" for the title of an Opeth album "My Arms, Your Hearse." He would continue this trend on "Ghost Reveries" with the track "The Baying Of The Hounds" from the track "Diana." Likewise David Tibet would also find inspiration in "Diana" by including his own demented version on the Current 93 album "Horsey" released in 1997.

Something clearly resonated with the COMUS debut as it did with yours truly and still remains one of those musical gifts from the gods, in this case, the party god COMUS. After the train wreck followup of "To Keep From Crying," it seemed unthinkable that COMUS would ever emerge from the shadows to release what could be regarded as a "proper" followup, but finally in 2012, the year that ends the Mayan calendar, that's exactly what they did with OUT OF THE COMA. The 2008 reunion concert in Sweden only reinforced the momentum and it seems the conspiracy of action was inevitable.

First of all, OUT OF THE COMA should not be viewed as a bona fide followup to "First Utterance." Instead it would be more appropriately thought of as a proper "what could have been" type of album. I mean, the band never had the proper self-esteem to carry on the"First Utterance" paradigm and literally imploded from the getgo, This album more rightfully corresponds to a "what we really wanted but never happened finally comes to fruition in a less than perfect way" reality. Oh well. In this dimensional plane where the negative and positive dance like drunken ballerinas trying to do the tango, that is good enough for me. OUT OF THE COMA delivers the goods in that regard with three totally new tracks and a less than perfect recording of the lengthy "The Malgaard Suite" which was intended for the authentic second album that never came to be.

The 35 year absence from one of the dark progressive folk's most stunning examples finally ended in 2012 as COMUS released OUT OF THE COMA. Once again, Roger Wootton provided the next stage in his ballpoint cover art which depicts the drunken character of the debut upright and finding a new way to animate itself. Likewise the music follows suite with three extraordinarily good tracks for a band so far removed from their early days. This new rendition of COMUS includes all the original members with only Rob Young (keyboards, percussion, oboe, flute) and Lindsay Cooper (oboe, bassoon, vocals) not finding their way into the new reality of COMUS. The new lineup also includes the new member Jon Seagroatt who plays flute, soprano sax, bass clarinet, percussion and even joins in as recording producer. One major complaint about the album is the incongruous "Introduction by Roger Wootton" that narrated the history of "The Malgaard Suite" on original issues but has thankfully been removed by popular demand. I agree that it was unnecessary and distorted the musical flow.

While one could nitpick to high heaven regarding the 2012 COMUS comeback OUT OF THE COMA, i have to say that this is a very welcome addition to the band's canon that needed to happen to explain the WTF history in a more refined context. Immediately two things hit me like a ton of bricks. Firstly Roger Wootton has lost his vocal range but still remains within the limitations of his vocal range as a much older guy and also that Bobbie Watson is still a supreme goddess who sounds as estrogen filled in the modern era as she did in her primetime, a major wow factor for an aging soprano. Secondly, the new tracks are very much a continuation of the debut. While not exactly outperforming anything from "First Utterance," OUT OF THE COMA more than blows away the substandard "To Keep From Crying" away. It may have taken 41 years to release a proper followup but that's exactly what COMUS did.

Musically the band picks up where "First Utterance" left off. You know, those beautifully constructed raw acoustic darkened stabs in the heart with frenzied execution that implement full acid rock energetic antics in a totally folk based context with utterly haunting atmospheres. The three new tracks exhibit a nicely up to date approach of the past. Exquisitely divine acoustic guitar fingerpicking, beautifully eked out melodies and and the beauty and the beast approach to vocals before metal ever latched onto the idea. The title track, "The Sacrifice" and "The Return" display COMUS' unique brand of freak folk with tribal drumming, lugubrious violin and the expected display of dark subject matter. While some may criticize "The Malgaard Suite" as an incomplete and dreadful underproduced relic from the past that should have been re-created for a bona fide followup album, i have to say that i kinda like it as it is.

OUT OF THE COMA should be accepted for what it is, namely a statement of the band's history rather than a legit followup to "First Utterance." Roger Wootton and company had zero plans ever to revisit the COMUS universe and only succumbed due to the surprising vitality of their debut, a live performance enthusiasm in 2008 and the solicitation of artists like Mikael Åkerfeldt who initiated the whole reunion thing. As far as progressive artists go, rarely do they manage to sustain the spirit that made their heyday so special but despite not exactly living up to the lofty expectations of "First Utterance," COMUS did an amazing job at keeping the feel of yore while living within the confines of the presence. While i like others could've wished for a complete album that faithfully picks up where the debut album left off, i have to admit that i'm very happy that COMUS released this next best thing. Perhaps they were aware of the limitations of releasing an album so many decades into the future and this is simply the best we could've hoped for. While nothing will dethrone the debut from its lofty perch, this comeback is no waste of time in any way.

If I were the tearful type, I'd say that all the disdain this album gets has barely kept me from crying. I wish more people would join the light side of Comus while still appreciating the dark side. Not only do I think that this album does not get enough respect from those who love First Utterance, but I wish that it got more attention from those who hate Comus based on the rather dark and disturbing, pagan themed conceptual album called First Utterance.

To Keep From Crying is a fun and I think dynamic album that I have recommended to various people who loathe Comus because of First Utterance, and while none of my attempts have so far worked, you can't Keep me From Trying. It's not necessarily that I think that they will like this album, but I want to show people that there is another gentler and happier side to the group. I hear Comus called by people who are not referring to the first album specifically but to the group generally, disturbing, gross, vile, soul destroying and gut wrenching. Generally these people have no familiarity with To Keep From Crying and so it doesn't even factor into their views of the band -- it's like the album doesn't even exist since it's so overshadowed by its sinister older sibling. But beyond that, I look at First Utterance in much the same way as watching a horror film or reading a horror novel.

First Utterance has a concept, and a creepy one at that. I think some who could easily take watching a film that has such themes and would not assume that the filmmaker is someone who condones brutal behavior have a harder time with music that deals with the same subject matter. Like lyrics are supposed to be authentic and heartfelt and not fictitious or something. Just because one writes about defiling a virgin in song, poem, novel or film does not mean that one condones the act, nor does listening to it or reading it mean that you condone it. And just because you tell a pagan story does not necessarily make you a pagan -- I mention this because some religious people are offended by it, and think it's Satanism. Sure, some might say that you're sick for being entertained by it or writing about it, but that's another angle. Incidentally, I think that the film The Wicker Man with its pagan themes works well with First Utterance (and I recommend the soundtrack to folk lovers who love pastoral music with creepy undertones). And no, I have not forgotten that I'm here to talk about To Keep From Crying, but it is hard not to compare it to First Utterance, and for me too when I first heard To Keep From Crying I couldn't help but compare it to the debut, and while I was pleasantly surprised by To keep From Crying because I had low expectations, it did seem on the whole a poor follow-up album. It's over the years that I've come to rate To keep From Crying much more highly and think that it's a very good album in its own right.

So... some are highly critical of the band Comus based solely on First Utterance, while others are highly critical of To Keep From Crying based on their love of First Utterance. Comus is losing out either way. I think each is very good in its own way, and in the ways that they overlap since despite the differences, both albums have musical similarities.

Like the earlier Comus album, this album also has plenty of beauty and a level of eccentricity. Like with F.U. the vocals on To Keep from Crying will grate with some at times. Yes, this is not the acid folk masterpiece that First Utterance is, the direction has changed, but there's still plenty to love in this album. Some of the music on this album would not be musically out of place on F.U. To Keep From Crying is not a harrowing experience, nothing wrong with up-beat, and there is much for varied tastes to enjoy.

From the moment I heard this album I thought the songs "Children of the Universe" and "To Keep From Crying" absolutely terrific which mix beautiful folk with an electrifying rock dynamic, and have fabulous build-ups. Five star songs. Wonderful! I also loved "Touch Down", "Waves and Caves", and the bluesy "Get Yourself a Man" is for me a real treat. That's already most of the album, but I didn't like the rest of the album much. As the years passed I found that I really like the whole album, and I appreciate the contrasts in the album. There's more going on in this album than you might notice at first -- it's not some lame slice of commercial pap, though it is more commercial than F.U. It is a different beast. The To Keep From Crying beast wants to be played, cause to not play it would make it sad, but doesn't want to play, play, play with you in a most bestial manner.

For those that hear this album slagged by fans of First Utterance, and those that automatically dismiss Comus because of some songs on First Utterance (shame on those who can't appreciate the pastoral and rather creepy beauty of "The Herald" at least ;) ), please give the To keep From Crying album a chance before you judge the album based on what you've heard or before you judge the band harshly overall due to thematic perceptions.

I actually have this album on Song to Comus, and appreciate it even more there for how it contrasts with the music of First Utterance -- dark versus light. For those that don't have this or First Utterance, If you can get your hands on Song to Comus, that is better than getting this alone. The bonus tracks on that album alone are stunning, and you don't know Comus until you've heard "Winter is a Coloured Bird" and "All the Colours of Darkness".

The music on this album is utterly essential to my music collection, and I return to it very frequently. It's also one of those albums that I don't want to end, partially because it ends so wonderfully with the song "To Keep From Crying".

I rated it four originally, but am dropping that rating to three simply because I doubt that most here will feel the same way that I do about this album even if they do give it a chance.

After regrouping for a Swedish festival in 2008, the original members of Comus decided to a issue this postcard to fans in 2012. Minus original woodwind player, Lindsay Cooper, the group compiled the three studio tracks piecemeal, with the basic tracks on Out Of The Coma recorded in the UK and Colin Pearson's violin overdubbed in Berlin. Additional guitar parts were overdubbed in yet another UK studio by Glenn Goring. This, I believe, is why these songs, "Out of the Coma", "The Sacrifice" and "Return", as welcome as they are, lack the organic spontaneity of the material (recorded live) found on the band's seminal debut album First Utterance from 1971. While all perform admirably, Goring's failure to produce warped demonic slides and hypnotic Bert Jansch styled finger picking, which was so prevalent on First Utterance, is definitely missed. Roger Wootton's vocals have not improved with age, which I suppose is a good thing for this material, but female vocalist Bobbie Watson's eerie soprano has and she's a revelation on this material, as well on the long lost copy of a live performance of the band's intended follow up suite song/album to First Utterance tilted "The Malgaard Suite."

Recorded on a cassette tape in 1972 (according to the liner notes), "The Malgaard Suite" is a greater leap by bounds over anything recorded on First Utterance. Poorly recorded due to the source equipment and medium, it is a fantastic blend of malevolent progressive folk music with a heavy emphasis on operatic singing and song arrangements, that quite frankly, makes "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen sound like a pop song. Running over fifteen minutes, Watson is the star of this piece with her ear shattering soprano singing and classical sounding scat vocals that easily give Annie Haslam a run for her money. Roger Wootton is able to shadow Watson without sounding sour and indeed gives much of the evil overtones to the music about a stalking midlevel ogre named Malgaard who's out to capture and have his way with a maiden of his fancy. Pearson's violin adds much to the eastern European "Transylvanian" vibe that's perfectly complemented by Cooper's spooky bassoon.

Much of what is sung is indecipherable, but like listening to an opera in a an unfamiliar language, this works to the song's advantage, and gives it a romantic edge seldom found in much of prog music. And frankly, "The Malgaard Suite", even in it's warts and all recorded condition, is some of the best prog music that I've had the pleasure to hear in the last forty five years.

It leaves one to ponder what a sympathetic record company could have done with the proposed two sided album long suite had not commercial concerns intervened and eventually forced the band to split up prior to the side two conclusion from ever being played after it was written, let alone recorded.

A must have album of prog? Hardly, but it's a must have for fans of Comus' cult classic debut album.