Customer Reviews

High Tide

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Often enough those who prove to be the real pioneers in music are punished for their talent. But while denied an audience, history rarely denies acknowledgment of the true breakthroughs. Tony Hill and High Tide seem to the perfect prototype for that neglect, and that always overdue respect. And though this self-titled sophomore release doesn't quite strike with the blinding brilliance of their first, "Sea Shanties", its only detraction is that of simply not being the first High Tide release.

The value of this work is proven enough by the fact that this music just won't go away. As Tony Hill says in his notes "I was convinced that we could achieve musical success (attracting an audience being an entirely different matter). Subsequently we found ourselves to be well received and appreciated. That was just as well, as I would have lost the will to live had we not moved the listener to some degree."

Hard not to admire a musician who is so articulate in his music, his musicianship and his grasp of the true enterprise. Breaking through in all directions, High Tide marks the almost instant perfection of the guitar / violin format for rock, polished and restructured some years later with King Crimson's "Lark's Tongues". But even the King, four or five years after this release, seemed at moments hard pressed to match the furies set loose by High Tide's first two albums -- now made all the more incandescently terrifying by 21st-century remastering. And even without the remarkable unreleased material, "High Tide" is worth your time, your money, your attention and your undying gratitude.

Anyone lucky or thorough enough to have heard about and listened to High Tide's phenomenal debut, Sea Shanties, has more likely than not been converted; on that album, these guys proved that they could match contemporaries Led Zeppelin in terms of sheer heavy metal (something few, if any, other bands before the 70's could claim), but they also proved that that no one else could match them in terms of pioneering an all-out wicked combination of screaming guitar and violin, backed by some doom-invoking compositions and lyrics. Unfortunately, the band's totally original concept was a little ahead of its time--they couldn't achieve much success in their native UK--though they were quite a bit more successful further East in Europe--and this self-titled second album became their final release. For those hooked on the dark spell of their debut, High Tide will not be likely to make you forget that album, but it certainly doesn't disappoint and comes up with the goods quite readily.

It's a short album, made up of only 3 tracks and clocking in at only around 33 minutes. And, more so than on their debut, the band has started moving away from a simpler heavy doom rock format and more into the realm of proto-progessive rock. This means the songs are mostly longer, and the compositional structure is a bit more complex. High Tide does rock nearly as hard as Sea Shanties, though, and the primary focus is still on an all-out battle between Hill's shrieking guitar and House's surprisingly potent violin. The opener, "Blankman Cries Again" picks up where Sea Shanties left off, combining a folky violin riff with rumbling guitar and bass. The lyrics seem to be a mysterious narrative, and Hill's voice still conjures the same bleakness it did on the first album. Around 3:00 the song really kicks into its groove and the duel between the guitar and violin reaches hair-raising heights. "The Joke" is a metaphysical exploration that starts with a few instrumental workouts--folk and classical merge with hard rock, and Hill and House really show off their mastery of their instruments. The verses are again pretty mysterious and dark, but not evocative or ineffective. Hill's solo goes places it never did on the band's opener, really chasing the corners of atmosphere that the song lays out. At 7:30, House reminds us how gentle and poignant the violin can be, bringing the song to a close with Hill's surprisingly deft finger-picked acoustic guitar.

The side-long "Saneonymous" cuts loose with some scorching guitar riffs juxtaposed against a violin line that seems to have nothing to do with the guitar part...definitely in prog country now. The acoustic passage at 4:00 is one of the song's most compelling parts, with House playing pizzicato on his violin. I really love the vocals and doomy groove--it's a shame Tony Hill didn't get a chance to sing on more High Tide records as I find his lyrics and voice to be hypnotic. The epic song treads some seriously rocking and distant territory before returning to this theme and winding down into silence. Although High Tide doesn't have the fresh surprise that Sea Shanties did (I mean, you can't really expect them to re-invent their sound when they were already doing something nobody had really attempted), it certainly prolongs the magic initiated by the debut. My only complaint is it makes me wish even more that they made more albums.

If you get High Tide, which you definitely should if you liked Sea Shanties, I recommend this Eclectic Disks reissue over Repertoire's--despite Repertoire's high standards for remastering and packaging, Eclectic's has extremely well-researched liner notes, and 4 bonus tracks, including rough cuts of "The Joke" and "Blankman Cries Again," as well as "The Great Universal Protection Racket" (a fascinating instrumental that the band was never happy with, a different version of which shows up on Sea Shanties) and "Ice Age," a forboding mostly acoustic number that is totally different from anything else the band recorded, again making me wish they lasted longer. I hope you enjoy what they did record as much as I do.