WHITE WITCH

It seems that White Witch's second album, A Spiritual Greeting, is seen by most people as their most progressive. Which really confuses me.

Now don't get me wrong, both WW albums are a mix bag of stuff. Ranging from spaced out heavy prog to psychedelic pop. BUT when it comes to prog rock, and which album is more consistently prog, then this album is what you're looking for.

The album opens up with Parabrahm Greeting/ Dwellers Of The Threshold, which is a great heavy prog/space rock intro with soaring vocals, great keyboard and guitar effects. The song then starts picking up and turns into a heavy prog wonder. Awesome. The song then segues into Help Me Lord.

Help Me Lord is an organ led prog number. Great vocals and keyboards throughout.

Don't Close You Mind is perhaps their most progressive song. A lot of synthesizer use in this one. As usual great vocal harmonies thanks to Ronn Goedert. There's some nice added touches of the wah-wah pedal. About midway through there is a brief bass and acoustic guitar part which quickly changes to a great guitar and keyboard jam. A truly great song throughout.

Your the One is where WW starts to turn out their wonderful prog with pop sensibilities. Another wah-wah and synthesizer led beauty which segues into Sleepwalk.

Sleepwalk is just one of their most beautiful songs. This song is led by synthesizers with some nice acoustic guitar playing along, then near the end Buddy Richardson does a brief jazz guitar solo and breaks out a searing guitar solo.

Home Grown Girl is a blues/boogie number, which I could do without, but is still a great song. Singer Ronn Goedert has a rougher style on this song, as apposed to a more melodic and mellow style on most of WW's material.

And I'm Leaving is another catchy song. Supposedly this was a minor hit for them in the US in 1972, barely missing the top 40.

Illusion is another highlight of this album. One of their heavier songs with Ronn Goedert giving his performance of a life time. As apposed to the rest of the album, this song is mainly guitar led. Keyboard wise there are organ and synthesizers playing along with the main guitar riff. Absolutely amazing song.

The album takes a huge turn with It's So Nice to be Stoned. As you can guess this is a stoner's anthem, its a wonder that its not more well known.

The album then closes with Have You Ever Thought of Changing?/Jackson Slade and The Gift which follows suite with the rest of the album.

This album is White Witch at their best, absolutely amazing. 4 Stars

-AP

I usually dismiss Capricorn Records as a southern rock label, given I was never a fan of said rock. But the label sure pulls a few surprises. Captain Beyond, for example, in which their debut really blew me away. Eddie Henderson recorded Realization and Inside Out, which you wonder how on Earth those albums ended up there and not on Columbia (perhaps Columbia having cold feet over Herbie Hancock's Sextant not selling too well, and these two albums were the same Mwandishi band, and in similar sound). Then there's White Witch.

I tend to cringe whenever I see this band described as a blueprint for the 1980s hair metal scene, given how I detest that scene. I have no issues at all when a band like KISS was described as a blueprint for said scene, that should surprise no one at all (and even KISS jumped on the bandwagon in the 1980s after taking off their makeup). But White Willow has too much going on to be thought of as a proto-hair metal band. Well, this is their debut, and it's a fascinating combination of hard rock, prog, with the occasional southern boogie. Hardin Pendergrass really had a creative use of the Mini Moog synthesizer. You can easily see that on "Help Me Lord", which is a truly great song that I can't get enough of. "Don't Close Your Mind" is very catchy. I can do without "Home Grown Girl", typical generic boogie number, but "And I'm Leaving" is a ballad that reminds me of something Todd Rundgren would do, it's really a nice piece. "Illusion" really rocks with some ELP type of organ solos. "It's Nice to Be Stoned", in my opinion, should have been the ending song. It's basically a joke song, but with lyrics highly critical of the criminalization of marijuana in America. I put this song in the same category as Fraternity of Man's "Don't Bogart that Joint". Luckily it's back to the more hard rocking stuff that they did so well.

Overall, this is a bit uneven album, but there is some really brilliant material that can't be denied. It may not appeal to everyone, but it's worth it.