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Armageddon - Armageddon CD (album) cover

ARMAGEDDON

Armageddon

 

Heavy Prog

3.41 | 104 ratings

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Sean Trane
Special Collaborator
Prog Folk
2 stars 2.5 stars really!!

Among some of these short supergroups made from well-known veterans, this Armageddon group (not to be confused with the German band or the heavy metal from much later) is a very short-lived one, since they disbanded after the on-stage death of ex- Yardbirds and lead singer Keith Relf, but given the boringness of their sole album, they wouldn't have survived any longer anyway. Made from Yardbirds, Renaissance, Steamhammer, Captain Beyond and Johnny Winter group ex-member, you'd have expected much more from these guys, especially on the four-part "epic" Basking In The White Of The Midnight Sun. Coming with disputable War artwork, reminiscent of Warm Dust's album, this album was produced by relf himself (which hardly believable since his vocals are mostly drowned in the mix) and was on A&M in 75.

Part of this album's problem is Martin Pugh's mostly uninspired guitar playing, just reinforcing my opinion that Steamhammer's last two albums (where bassist Cennamo also played) were indeed poor. If Mountains was still correct, I always disliked the extremely sloppy Speech. Armageddon's album is more along the lines of the still- salvageable Mountains album. Actually the album starts at 100MPH with Buzzard, with an infectious guitar riff, but unfortunately repeated endlessly over the 8 minutes of the song. If Relf's vocals are buried in the mix, his harmonica solo towards the end is loud and clear. Starting much softer, Silver Tightrope, a boring and sloppily-written ballad, where Cennamo's bowed bass guitar gets some action, but will disappear as the track slowly builds up. Future games returns to an endlessly repeated guitar riff, even if this is the only shorter track of the album. Bad stuff as is Last Stand Before that opens the flipside, although there is an abrupt tempo change halfway through, but man is this heavy - in the clumsy and tiresome sense of the word, even though the second half is more interesting and might just be the album's high-water mark. The 11-mins+ epic mentioned above starts a bit in the same vein as its predecessor had ended: a prog intro before a 100 MPH guitar riff repeated endlessly covers Relf's vocals in the second section. The last two movements are more heavy guitars with harmonica responses, but although the group engages in more frequent tempo changes, it's become very tedious, despite some real heaviness.

Normally given the participants, this album should've been one of those hidden gems, but somehow, somewhere, things went terribly wrong. Armageddon's sole album is probably one of the neediest of a good remastering, and might even need a remix, and even then, that won't save it from getting a low rating. Best avoided, unless you're a fan of second- zone hard rock/heavy metal with slight prog touches.

Sean Trane | 2/5 |

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