ANDROMEDA

Anyonewho is a fan of ATOMIC ROOSTER needs to check this album out. John Du Cann is the guitarist on this ANDROMEDA record and when it didn't become a commercial success he left to join ATOMIC ROOSTER. Both bands played a similar hard rocking style but ANDROMEDA were a trio with no organ. This band was one of the early prog bands as this was released in 1969. When I first heard it my initial reaction was that it sounded dated, but that really is it's charm. It does have a psychedelic flavour to it, but really this is often heavy, bordering on Metal at times. I can't believe how good this lead guitarist is though. A lot of times it's just a shred-fest. The bass is very upfront as well.

"Too Old" opens with some scorching guitar before the drums and bass join in on this uptempo rocker. The bass is prominant. Vocals after 1 1/2 minutes. More excellent guitar after 4 minutes. "Day Of The Change" is a mid paced tune that starts slowly. A fairly catchy, straight forward song. The tempo picks up 2 1/2 minutes in as we get some ripping guitar and throbbing bass. We're back to the original melody a minute later. Cool tune."And Now The Sun Shines" is a relaxing ballad-like tune. "Turns To Dust" is a more energetic track with vocals, as the guys play fairly behind him and over top of him. Haha. Check out the guitar after 3 minutes, and the absolutely blistering solo 5 1/2 minutes in.

"Return To Sanity" opens with marching-like drums as the sound starts to build as bass and guitar join in. It stops after 2 minutes as a new more relaxing melody arrives. Vocals after 3 minutess. The ripping guitar with pounding drums is contrasted with the relaxing passages to end the song. "The Reason" features aggressive guitar coming and going throughout. I really like this one. "I Can Stop The Sun" is a mellow track with fragile vocals, acoustic guitar and harmonies. "When To Stop" is the 8 1/2 minute closer. A powerful intro is replaced by a light melody of guitar, bass and light drums. Vocals join in. It gets powerful again as this contrast continues. I love the guitar before 4 minutes that trades solos with the bass until they join forces .Nice. The last section features Spanish sounding guitar melodies in a pastoral ending.

There are 8 bonus tracks.The first is significant "Go Your Way" as it was the first single the band released on RCA. I also really like the blazing instrumental "Exodus". An excellent record that may appeal to those fans of power trios. This is one of the earliest.

ELP's Great uncle?

Anyone who has ever indulged in genealogy will be aware that the roots of the tree can spread far wider than the branches. So it is in terms of music and the relationships between bands. Andromeda (not to be mistaken for the more recent Swedish prog metal band of the same name) are a good example of how the perceived importance of a band can lie not in what they did themselves, but in their distant relationship with others.

It is fair to say that much of the interest generated by Atomic Rooster comes from the fact that Carl Palmer of Emerson Lake and Palmer was their first drummer. Admittedly, Atomic Rooster did manage a couple of hit singles and their albums are well respected by the select few, but for many it is Palmer's presence which causes them to investigate the band's work.

So with Andromeda, the main interest here is that John DuCann, later of Atomic Rooster, was the leader of this one shot outfit. Ironically, DuCann and Palmer were not in Atomic Rooster at the same time. Released in 1969, this self titled album was the only original album released in the name of Andromeda, who split up when DuCann was asked to join Atomic Rooster.

On to the album itself, and there is no doubt that the music here is ambitious, especially in view of the rudimentary line up the band in instrumental terms. The sole lead instrument is the lead guitar of DuCann, which combines with his vocals to provide the sound that prevails throughout. The feel is a sort of cross between Cream and Led Zeppelin, with lead guitar flurries and multi-tracked vocals driven by a heavy drums and bass combination. Inevitably there are also similarities with the work of Atomic Rooster, albeit devoid of the distinctive organ sounds of the band.

The tracks are certainly more than simply pop rock excursions, their structures and arrangements covering up well for the one dimensional nature of the line up. DuCann's guitar work is original and adventurous, showing little or no desire to pander to the demands of a singles centric public.

Three of the tracks here are long for the period, running to 7 to 9 minutes. Each is in three parts giving the impression at least of something even more complex. This is a bit misleading, although "Return to sanity" does have a quasi-symphonic atmosphere at times, in part due to the "Planets (Mars)"/"Bolero" like intro which builds the expectation in the first part of the track. Too soon though it is succeeded by something altogether more prosaic.

The overall feel of the album is, despite the apparent complexities, rudimentary; this is an album which flatters to deceive. Perhaps it is the underlying quality of the song-writing which is the issue here, the songs being built on shaky ground. Whatever it is, while I find the album to be on one level admirable and ambitious, on another I simply find it unremarkable. DuCann and colleague are to be congratulated on making the best of what they had, unfortunately they needed a bit more.

Almost a rockier, more forceful version of Steve Howe's Tomorrow, Andromeda rank amongst the very finest of British psychedelic groups that emerged during late-sixties, featuring a power- trio set-up that lends much of their material a heavy, gritty feel. Definitely a pre-cursor to the first wave of progressive rock and operating somewhere between the jocular pop-psych of Tomorrow and the dark, brooding menace of early Pink Floyd, Andromeda's debut is a first-rate slice of proto-prog featuring expansive song-writing, skilful interplay and some suitably incoherent sci-fi themes lyrics. Led by guitarist/vocalist John DuCann and also featuring Mick Hawksworth(bass, vocals) and drummer Ian McLane, the group's debut album is highly- recommended for those who prefer the slightly heavier side of psych, though the real surprise here are the strangely catchy melodies that adorn tracks such as 'Now The Sun Shines' and 'Turn To Dust'. The material becomes progressively more ambitious towards the albums second side - the eight-minute mini-epic 'Return To Sanity' features some powerful guitar-and- organ interplay spread over four interlocking sections - yet the group's real strength lies in their ability to insert carefully-hidden pop hooks into their rather avant-garde sound. Recommended to all psych fans, the only real disappointment is that Andromeda stopped after just one album, leaving this self-titled effort as the only proof of their sadly-truncated existence. STEFAN TURNER, STOKE NEWINGTON, 2012

Andromeda was a late 60's band that had John Cann (later he joined Atomic Rooster) in their line-up. They only released one album, the self-titled and amazing Andromeda (1969) by RCA Records.

Andromeda (1969) comes absolutelly soaked in Blues Rock, Proto Prog and Psychedelia and is, in many ways, the precursor of some bands.

Andromeda is completely Proto Prog in songs like the amazing opener 'Too Old', 'Turns To Dust', 'Return To Sanity' and 'When To Stop'. In other hand tracks like 'Day Of The Change' and 'Return To Sanity' sounds as Black Sabbath. But remember that Black Sabbath only released their first album in 1970. I could say that Tony Iommi was very aware of this band/album while Black Sabbath was writting their first album.

Andromeda (1969) also comes with high psychedelic colors of course (just look at the cover) in tracks like 'And Now The Sun Shines', the Cream influenced 'The Reason' and the folk driven 'I Can Stop The Sun'.

What we have in Andromeda (1969) is a beautiful and raw (recorded in less than a month) Proto Prog album with Blues Rock and Psychedelic colors. Everything packed with an amazing bass playing by Mick Hawksworth (that also played with Fuzzy Duck), solid drums by Ian McLane and loads of great guitars by John Cann and good vocals.

My CD version is the Repertoire Records 1994 version and has 8 bonus tracks. Bonus tracks are 95% of the time, wasted time, a fan thing. They were not good enough to be on the original record and are still not good enough to be on re-editions too. Not different here. We have some good tracks like 'Go Your Way' and 'Let's All Watch The Sky Fall Down'. But the rest is pretty much forgettable.

Too bad the band didn't survived to record a second album.

One of the original power trios that ushered in the hard rock 70s, ANDROMEDA was formed in 1967 by the legendary guitarist John Du Cann best known for his stint with Atomic Rooster. After two years of releasing singles in the psychedelic freakbeat band The Attack, Du Cann shifted gears and wanted to form a band that was both heavier and jumping on the progressive bandwagon. After recruiting his buddy and bassist Mick Hawksworth, later of Fuzzy Duck and Alvin Lee plus drummer Jack McCulloch who would soon be replaced by Ian McLane, ANDROMEDA was born and haunted the London circuit with a new heavier blend of psychedelia and more aggressive rock.

The band was enthusiastically supported by none other than DJ John Peel who was trying to woo them onto his Dandelion Records label however Cann was swayed by the self-producing aspects that RCA promised and the band released its first and only self-titled album in 1969 however RCA didn't really know what they got themselves into and didn't have the expertise to market a heavier band as the hard rock proto-metal sound hadn't become a commercial enterprise at this stage. The lack of promotion and label support ultimately caused Du Cann to accept an offer to join Atomic Rooster leaving ANDROMEDA a thing of the past.

A truly powerful and for the most part heavy album for 1969, ANDROMEDA prognosticated one of the major developments of the psychedelic rock scene in the late 60s and that was the increased heaviness of the rock paradigm. More hard rock than prog, the latter is showcased in the excellent three suite "Return To Sanity" which showcased Du Cann's more sophisticated songwriting aspects which would win him a slot in Atomic Rooster. The album begins with the heavy rocker "Too Old" which showcased what these days sounds like typical 70s hard rock but this was 1969 before these types of bands existed. ANDROMEDA somewhat served as one of those bridges between the heavy psych of bands like Cream and Blue Cheer and the whole slew of proggy hard rockers such as Captain Beyond, Stray, Groundhogs, T2 and beyond.

The album features plenty between blistering hard rockers with heavy fuzz laden riffing, beefed up bass grooves and a drumming technical prowess that was above the 60s norm. The opening "Too Old" introduces the brave new world of souped up heavy psych but the band also delivered a softer side as heard on the "And Now The Sun Shines" but these tracks are overshadowed by the power surge that amplifies the heavier moments that sound like Jimi Hendrix on methamphetamines. Another highlight is the closing three-part "When To Stop" which pulls out all the bluesy hard rock touches prog style. The album is actually pretty diverse in its approach even though it pretty much sticks to the blues rock paradigm and the exclusive instrumentation of the guitar, bass and drum.

While a flash in the pan as far as bands go, ANDROMEDA nevertheless has been recognized as one of those albums that provided the perfect transition between the heavy psych 60s and the hard rock 70s. Of course Atomic Rooster would take Du Cann even further into prog territory with the inclusion of a prominent keyboardist but ANDROMEDA was well underway into a complete metamorphosis into a prog butterfly. The original vinyl album LP fetches an insane price these days but luckily the album has been reissued many times including a newer remastered version with an extra disc of demos, bonus tracks and all kinds of goodies. All in all, ANDROMEDA delivered a hard rockin' album that was the perfect way to say goodbye to the psychedelic 60s.