Customer Reviews

Reflection

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One disc approximately 48 min. long.Sound is typical late sixties-not remastered. First off be aware that this album is still available in two different covers. I'm reviewing the disc put out by Akarma Records-the cover is a color photo of the band through some golden fuzzy leaves. Steamhammer,formed in 1969,was an interesting group. The vocals were a bit like This Was Jethro Tull,the songs were blues-based and the guitars were blues-rock sounding. There was a bit of Jethro Tull sounding flute throughout. In 1969 this was a curious sound-people didn't know what to make of it. The opening instrumental,a quiet guitar passage,segues into an in your face guitar sound that will wake you up. The songs on this album were sequenced in such a manner that gives it a nice flow between fast and slow tunes. The original album ends with a continuation of the first quiet track-very nice. This edition has two extra tracks which are all right but disrupt the feel of the original album. I always thought it was a shame that this album wasn't released in America in 1969. This is just the sort of non-commercial sounding music more people should hear.

I saw Steamhammer once at the Marquee Club in the early 70's and they were (in my memory) simply brilliant: high power British blues. The lp captures some of that. I do wish all the tracks had the intensity of "Junior's Wailing" or "Whatcha Gonna Do . . ." but they don't. People didn't flock to Steamhammer for their more sensitive Oprahic side--it was the Marshall stacks that woke up the audience.