Customer Reviews

In Hearing

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Well, in our whereabouts (and I was born behind the Iron Curtain) In Hearing of Atomic Rooster (which appeared in a timely Polish edition) was really a very big thing. Not in sales, because it was all copied on reels from friends, but as for impact it made on our minds. It is one of few artists of genuine desperation and world angst. It made you really feel the pain and sadness of being in this world. It had a existentialist grip of few other disks of what is called pop, accompanied with genuine blues "devil" (Robert Johnson type) feeling (nothing to do with posh satanism). Every track in this album is diamond. I steel keep dear my old LP. There is surely nothing similar to it in the modern pop music. It is not heavy, it is not rock, it is sheer genius of two young musicians who are no longer with us to try to explain how they did it.

have owned this since 1971...a great cd the vocals of Pete French are the best of any Atomoc Rooster band! The album rocks and rolls with terrific abandon! Get it!the last album with John Cann on guitar and is a classic.The band has never been tighter and I spent hundreds buying every album they made non compare except the first with Carl Palmer on drums and the second.

Originally released in later 1971, this was Atomic Rooster's third actual album.'In Hearing...' is a decently written and produced lp and all,but it isn't AS rocking as the band's first two efforts. Looked at the CD's liner notes and I saw that even though guitarist John DuCann, organist Vincent Crane and Paul Hammond (Rooster's true classic line-up) is on this album,they apparently decided to hire an extra player (one time Cactus member) Pete French to handle the vocals. While I'll admit French is acceptable,he's certainly no John DuCann. Best tracks to be found here are "Break The Ice", the rocking "Head In The Sky" (this lp can use more cuts like this one) and the two good sounding instrumentals "A Spoonful Of Bromide Helps The Pulse Rate Go Down" and "The Rock". Plus, a bonus track of "Devil's Answer" is tagged on. What I suggest is,if you happen to recently be discovering this band like myself,look for sites online that may have sound clips of this CD's tunes. Decide from there if you like this title.

Why haven't I tried Atomic Rooster much earlier? They are a band I heard of forever, been aware of forever that Carl Palmer was in this band before ELP (he only appeared on Rooster's debut album before jumping ship to ELP), and I even remembered a local Eugene, Oregon radio station (KRVM) playing "Black Snake" and "Head in the Sky" back in 1994 on a prog rock-oriented program called Deep Water Melodies.

OK, so In Hearing Of was their third album with just as many lineup changes. Now the band included vocalist ex-Cactus vocalist Pete French alongside guitarist John Cann, organist Vincent Crane, and drummer Paul Hammond. Many people call Death Walks Behind You as their high point, and while I have yet to try that album if In Hearing Of is anything to go by, I'm going to be in for a real treat for that album.

Anyway, this is a truly wonderful combination of hard rock and prog, certain to please fans of both, as the opening cut "Breakthrough" demonstrates, with some great piano and organ work, and some nice bluesy vocals. "Break the Ice" features some truly guitar guitar riff from Cann himself, and more great organ work from Crane. "Decision / Indecision" is a piano-oriented ballad which is not typical for the album, but works fine. "A Spoonful of Bromide Helps the Pulse Rate Go Down" (luckily not a parody of "A Spoonful of Sugar Helps the Medicine Go Down" from Mary Poppins) is an instrumental piece and by far the most traditionally prog-oriented piece. "Black Snake" is a truly nice mellow number, dominated by Crane's organ work, while the band rocks once again with "Head in the Sky". "The Rock" is the album's other instrumental piece, with some Chicaco or Blood, Sweat & Tears-like horns (arranged by yours truly, Vincent Crane), imagine if those two bands sounded more like Atomic Rooster, this is what you get. The CD reissue also includes their hit single, "Devil's Answer", still an excellent song, even if includes Chicago or BS&T-like horns. Oddly, the American LP on Elektra has this on In Hearing Of, but not the British vinyl, so basically if you own the CD reissue with "Devil's Answer", you got the complete American LP. I guess Elektra wisely knew the American audience was not as likely to buy singles so that's why they tagged "Devil's Answer" to the end of side one of the LP (right after "A Spoonful of Bromide").

What's also interesting is the cover is by Roger Dean, perhaps one of his most down-to-earth covers, it bears so little resemblance to the Yes album covers he's best known for, but then Roger Dean had done covers that looked little like Yes album covers like Babe Ruth's First Base (1972) and Gracious' This Is... (1971).

This is an excellent album and a must have.

I loved the whole album. But Black Snake is my favorite. I just love that song. "Black Snake living in a black hole hiding from the sun. Like evil hides in the darnkness waiting for the night to come." I used to have the album and just recently got the CD. I had a best of CD but the version of Black Snake on it was different, was really glad to finally get this CD. It is great to be able to listen to it again. This CD is highly recommended.

This album is very listenable. Cool organ by Vincent Crane....Classic period piece. Buy it.

This album certainly has its moments, Head in the Sky and Spoonful of Bromide shine through as they are more "hard-edged" than the rest of the album. I just wanted to comment on Dr Marcel Wild's review; where is the sax on this album? I've had a vinyl copy for 20 years and I've never heard it. Secondly, Devil's Answer sounds more commercial because it was only ever released as a single, and was never placed on an album. In fact, it is not representitive of Rooster at all! This album, although very good, loses out because the guitar is mixed right back most of the time, and everything is keyboard-dominated. In my opinion, the best album is Death Walks Behind You - nothing else by Rooster comes close.

I don't know how the record company did it, but they managed to get Judge Judy to pose on the album cover. :)

In Hearing of Atomic Rooster is the bands third album, and it's a *drastic* departure in sound from their previous two albums. For some reason or another, the band decided to let up on the heaviness of their guitar playing, and focus slightly less on riffs and solos, in exchange for more soulful and funkier vocal melodies. It actually works amazingly well. That's my impression... for about half of the album. The other half *does* contain the same kind of extremely heavy guitar riffs and solos we've come to expect.

A song like "Head In the Sky" is *extremely* heavy with a mighty fine vocal performance and even better keyboard work. The guitar solo at the end is an underrated aspect of the song, I believe. This song is a classic in my mind.

A song like "The Price" utilizes a soulful vocal melody in the hopes that alone will carry the song (well, besides some really terrific drumming too). It *does* carry the song. Granted, the song's a littly clunky and rough around the edges thanks to the vocals taking up such a large portion of it, though perhaps another reason for the slight clunkiness is because the album was not produced the same way as Death Walks Behind You. On that album everything was very loud and totally clean and professional. On this one, well, it definitely sounds like an early 70's album, let's put it that way. Slightly muddy all around.

I'm not sure what kind of style "Black Snake" falls under. It's a very mellow song for the most part, with just the occasional keyboards pacing along quietly, but the vocal melody is just terrific (like always might I add- hey, this band KNEW how to write a vocal melody!) but there's something very different about it compared to anything else the band ever did... er, make that *anything* I've ever heard before.

A song like "Breakthrough" is proof that Atomic Rooster had a heck of a great rhythm section too because this is one extremely catchy song. The song might seem ordinary on the surface, but repeated listens reveal otherwise. My personal favorite is "Break the Ice". Something about that incredibly catchy vocal melody and the sporadic keyboards appearing in just the right spots (especially about a minute before the song is over) really triggers a happy reaction out of me.

"The Rock" is a BRILLIANT instrumental with a funky rhythm section, a jaw-dropplingly awesome keyboard solo at the end, and a pretty good guitar solo in the middle. For everyone who dislikes this album, well, it's impossible to overlook something *this* good. Speaking of instrumentals, it's really rare when you hear two of them on the same album that are of equal quality, but "A Spoonful of Bromide Helps the Pulse Rate Go Down" is seriously *just* as good. Just as much energy, and just as much melodic instrumental playing.

Hey, I'm just as surprised as you that I love this album! I went in expecting to hear a band washed up and ready to call it quits after releasing a couple more mediocre albums, but uh... albums like Made In England might be worth investigating after all. This is a lost classic and a personal favorite of mine.

I just pulled this one out again ....I still believe If you buy any Rooster this one and the one prior are the only ones you need buy!
With John Cann , Vincent Crane and Pete French together as they are here ( the only cd in which that is the case) is as great a hard rockin band as there has ever been!
Buy it crank it up and see what I mean!
I have reveiwed this cd one other time and my feelings are the same Guitar thru a cranked Marshall and a Hammond B3 thru a Leslie which also sounds monster is just the start of the pleasures of this gem!

Yes, as one earlier reviewer states it, the black snake rules indeed! This song kept sneaking back into my brain time and again after I lost my tape of "In Hearing of Atomic Rooster" many years ago. When I bought the CD, I recalled that this is just o n e of 8 superb tracks. This CD competes with the best work of ELP which one is somewhat reminded of whenever the piano dominates. But e.g. there is great sax as well.There isn't any dull moment on this CD! I keep wondering whether it's really just three people (excluded the singer) which produce such a tight sound. The bonus track "Devil's answer" is from another album of Atomic Rooster which apparently was a big success. But it doesn't really measure up with the rest of "In Hearing of", so I'm still in doubt as to whether I should buy that one.