MOMENTO

Bakery is one of the forgotten psychedelic heavy prog bands coming from Australia from early '70's. Originaly released in 1971 and re issued by Radioactive on CD 35 years later, this album has good and amost good moments. Graced with flute, organ and all ingredients an album must have in this style of music, quite tipycal for that period, Bakery manage to come with an enjoyble album, yet not quite very well balanced. the opening track Holocaust and Living With a Memory the best tracks from here and aswell the most lenghty , delivers a great heavy prog with psychedelic and jazzy arrangements, where the flude and keybords has good parts, aswell the guitar did a great job, vocal parts are ok even great in places. The rest of the pieces all clocking around 5-6 min are more rock orientated without that great atmosphere on thsose 2 piece mentioned above, quite directly and no big fancy elements are presented. Not very much to add, just , this album worth some spins, but is not something special, fans of Uriah Heep at some point, might give this album a try. 3 stars, othing more nothing less, is not a must have album but some enjoyble parts are present here.

Bakery were an australian group which is quite unknown to the prog community, it's not that they released a masterpiece album and have to be widely known, but they were a part of the history of prog rock in the early 70's. Their first album 'Rock Mass For Love' is an effort to fuse some preaching at mass and rock n' roll, some kind of a 'jesus christ superstar' for the young crowd. No interest for progers though. Their second album 'Momento' is a different story and represent the bands most creative peak, an album trying to go further towards progressive realms. Unfortunately this stayed their only complete album to date, because of their break up in around 1975.

The bands style is a mix between heavy progressive, jazz and a slight psychedelic feel. The sound is quite rich sometimes including flue, keys, piano and saxophone. The writing is good and the band is trying to go from one idea to the next easily passing through some instrumentals on the way or solos. Mixing between calm acoustic parts and heavier rockier moments. As progressive as they are trying to be they are featuring some more straight forward rocky stuff as well, and some album fillers too. The more progressive songs 'Living With a Memory' and 'Holocaust' are definitely better, 'holocaust' is where everything falls right in place and manage to be exciting, containing some wild guitar playing, very good keys and some wacky sax, 'Living With a Memory' is good the solos are good, sound is good but everything is just good and not amazing. 'S.S. Bounce' is a rocky song failing to reach black sabbath on their worst day in the 70's. 'The Gift' is an improvement and although it's 8 minutes long it is not progressive but definitely electrifing with heavy keys, heavy guitar and killer main riff sounding like Deep Purple, also one of the highlights.

This could have been a great stepping stone for the band to go from, but instead it was their swan song. The band kept on going for a few years, but never released anything maybe due to some personnel changes, and that is a real shame. Like i said the album is overall good but non essential. Good cover. 3 stars.

Bakery were first known as Deep Purple copyists - that side of their music is represented by the driving heavy organ rock of "The Gift". Then, thanks to their involvement in the Rock Mass For Love, they were thought of as a Christian band - "Faith To Sing A Song" is the only track here that *might* qualify. Momento in fact shows the band to be somewhat more diverse than either caricature. "SS Bounce" represents a fairly straight hard rock style, albeit with audible psych influences, while "When I'm Feeling" is more a country-rock ballad. The longer songs "Holocaust", "Living With A Memory" and "Faith To Sing A Song" display a stronger psych-prog side, with several sectional changes, extended solos, and experiments with different metres. The playing is good, the vocals less so, often out of tune (particularly in "SS Bounce" and "When I'm Feeling"). An extended live version of "Living With A Memory" appears on the Sunbury 1973 compilation, and it's a far better performance than anything on this album. Unfortunately, that was the last Bakery recording to be released.

Yet another lost psych album, and yet another one of such that stands as a masterpiece. Bakery mixed not just light and heavy guitar psych, but also some soft keyboard psych too. The long opening track shows off their range wonderfully. Going forward, they alternate from beautiful softness and rockin' heaviness, both to great effect. Going on through Side One, for instance, "Pete for Jennie" is a nice little piece, while then "Living With A Memory" opens with soft keys, and then breaks into heavy and dense psych with interludes. The singing is wonderful, the keys strange and well played, the guitar is just nailed. Excellent and highly recommended.