SPEECH

STEAMHAMMER were a hard rocking Blues Rock band out of the UK releasing four studio albums with "Speech" being the final one from 1972. They were a five piece on their first two records, down to a four piece on that third album, and to a trio here of bass, guitar and drums. They brought in a guest singer as well as Keith and Jane Relf to add backing vocals and Keith helped produce this. Keith and Jane being from THE YARDBIRDS of course. Interesting that when STEAMHAMMER broke up the the guitarist and bass player joined Keith and formed ARMAGEDDON releasing their sole album in 1975.

There is nothing bluesy about this album at all. It really is a one-off in their discography of three long experimental tracks that has more to do with Krautrock than anything else. Maybe that's why the Brain label in Germany signed them here. Brain was a hotbed of some of the best Krautrock bands out there back at this time. The music is dark and not very melodic most of the time. Experimental all the way especially the guitar, but the bass player uses a bow on his bass and man does he get some ugly sounds out of that. Priceless stuff.

We get the side long opener "Penumbra" which is a great example of what this album is all about. The bowed bass, high pitched guitar theatrics, it's dark and experimental and vocals come and go, mostly go. Oh that bowed bass is distorted at times. Nasty. "Telegram(Nature's Mischief)" is the 12 minute opener on side two and after a brief spacey start that squeeling guitar takes over as the vocals sing in a determined but odd way. Man this is different. A gong signals a change and there's few of those as this plays out. The guitar lights it up late but mostly we get this annoying high pitched sound. Harmonies too from the Relf's after 5 1/2 minutes then a calm and some repetitive stuff.

The closer is the 11 minute "For Against" which for the most part is a drum solo starting around 3 minutes in. So there's that. This is one of those albums that their fans would have dismissed after what they had created before with the previous three records. For me this would have been the album to bring in a different fan base if they had kept going and in this style of music but this truly is a one-off for them, and being so experimental not a popular one either. My Krautrock membership won't allow me to go lower than 4 stars here despite not really having that enjoyment factor I demand out of a 4 star record if you know what I mean. This was a talented band and I can't just say they were out to lunch here, or were they?