KINGDOM COME

This is the overlooked album in Kingdom Come's triptych of studio releases, and I can kind of see why. It's not by any means bad - it's a fun psych-space journey with some inter-song skits reminiscent of those Zappa, Beefheart, and the Bonzo Dog Band had dabbled in - but it's not as compellingly visceral as Galactic Zoo Dossier or groundbreakingly original as Journey.

Indeed, there's a BBC session from about a month or so before the album released where they didn't actually play any material from it, instead playing early versions of songs from Journey, which rather suggests that the band had already creatively moved on from the material here before they actually released it.

There's some interest to it, mind - the overall concept is to play an allegorical song cycle with watery themes as a sort of counterpart to The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, which brought you... well, fire. At the same time, it's the volcanic, firey side of Brown which is so charismatic, so listening to him trying to embody the yielding, accommodating force of water doesn't quite hit the mark. It's still enjoyable, but it's very much Kingdom Come feeling the way from Galactic Zoo Dossier towards Journey without quite hitting on the brilliantly sparse and spacey sound of Journey yet.