THE 2ND OF MAY

I guess it would have been appropriate to have posted this review four weeks ago! The 1971 follow-up to "May Blitz", "The 2nd of May" featured similarly grotesque artwork on the cover and contained eight excellent tracks, but sold poorly, probably due to lack of air play.

The album kicks off with "For Mad Men Only", with a heavy fuzzy power chord guitar and driving beat, it contains some great riffs and solos, certainly a sign of things to come as they are similar to bands such as Black Sabbath. This track also reminds me of the typical heavy sound from UK underground Psyche/Space rock band "Stray". The style of vocals in "Snakes and Ladders" sounds reminiscent of Hendrix, has a strong bass line, fuzz power chords which sound very Black Sabbath indeed. There are echoed backing vocals and "space" effects swirling around, now we're in Hawkwind territory! "The 25th of December" as you'd guess is a Christmas song which swings along beautifully, occasionally leading into whispered vocals and a jazzy style rhythm and bluesy guitar. "In Part" is a jazzy style number which has a flute playing in the background, funny thing the vocals are half sung half spoken, almost rap-like, which leads into a fine drum solo. I don't care what anyone says, i love 'em!! The next track on the cd is called "8 Mad Grim Nits", not sure who they refer to but it is a crazy fast jazzy jam featuring very fast drum and bass playing and some wild fuzzy, phased over- amped lead guitar, really sounds like they had a lot of fun doing this one! Here's another group i would have loved to have seen live. "High Beech" is a beautiful folky song overlaid with watery acoustic guitars and nice lyrics, "shadows spring to life", "today is the beginning of the rest of our lives". "Honey Coloured Time" is another beautiful song about our hypocritical world with hushed vocals, which includes some fine jazz style guitar and bass and a Hendrix style ending, talk about mixing styles. "Just Thinking" is a ponderous, dreamy love song, very laid back, and features some interesting echoed "squeaky" guitar effects.

I enjoy listening to this album very much and it's a shame May Blitz didn't do more after they were dropped from Vertigo. James Black and Reid Hudson returned to Canada and Tony Newman went on to work with such artists as Three Man Army, Marc Bolan, David Bowie & Mick Ronson, Chris Spedding and David Coverdale's Whitesnake. IMO an essential addition to any Prog/Space/Psyche collection.