DEATH MAY BE YOUR SANTA CLAUS

The second album from Second Hand is from 1971 and is called Death May Be Your Santa Claus, it´s a very tripped out and strange album but I think it is excellent. It´s not very often you come across a band like this I´ll promise you that.

The music is dominated by Ken Elliott´s organ and mellotron playing, especially his organ is omnipresent. It has a very cool sound and with his occasional use of the mellotron this makes for an exciting listen. Lead singer Rob Elliot is also a real asset to Second Hand. He is a very diverse singer and a real entertainer. His vocal style ranges from manic distorted singing to mouse like singing in the vein of Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention. On Baby R U Anudda Monster he even does a really good Captain Beefheart impersonation. In many ways Death May Be Your Santa Claus reminds me of Arthur Brown´s Kingdom Come´s album Galactic Zoo Dossier which is also from 1971. Death May Be Your Santa Claus is a lot better though. There are slight Gentle Giant influences in the instrumental interplay too.

Second Hand could have been in the RIO/ Avant genre with all these strange influences. All is not well though. The first 6 songs are superb examples of Second Hand´s sound and style, but suddenly from song number 7 Cyclops through to song number 9 we are treated with some organ instrumental songs which I personally think is a waste of time. But with the last three songs Second Hand get back on track and treats us with some good songs, even though the last 3 songs never reaches the hights of the first 6.

The production is very good. I really enjoy the sound quality here.

My final evaluation will be 4 stars even though it is only about half of the album that is good. But the first 6 songs are masterpiece class in my ears and deserves more than a 3 star rating. I find this album highly recommendable even though there are flaws.