Customer Reviews

Ssssh

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

 

 

A hard rocking blues statement that is perhaps TYA's defining album. SSSH! was in a way their last "all" blues album relying on some great covers and originals with Alvin Lee firmly in control as leader.
This album preceeded the greatness of the Cricklewood Green album which took off commercially as a bluesy, English,Jazzy,folk and rock and roll album showcasing them into superstardom(of the day) Their psychedelic explorations of sound and texture took off with Cricklewood but shades of these studio explorations are found in all their past works but Ssssh!
is all primal blues and in a way their most true blue record.
All their remasters are very good.

If you're gonna start with Ten Years After, I'd say just go for the best and get this album. It has everything you need:Roaring vocals, searing guitarwork, thundering grooves, and an overall a**-kicking vibe. The album lets loose right from the getgo with Bad Scene, a song that predates punk rock by about 7 years. The sudden changes and different riffs on the song would normally faulter in another band, but on here, its just really groovy and psychdelic in a good way. Stoned Woman and Good Morning Little Schoolgirl are both firey rockers, the latter having one of the most intense guitar and bass solos I've ever heard. These guys make Cream sound like sissypants.

Also, you got a few nice sounding ballads such as I Don't Know That You Don't Know My Name, the soul of If You Should Love Me, and the country-tinged Two Time Mama. On top of that, you have some good old fashioned blues rock such as the John Lee Hooker-based Stomp, and the basic, but still memorable I Woke Up This Morning.

This is Ten Years After at their finest. For those of you who couldn't get enough of them on the Woodstock movie, get this album. You can't go wrong.

I grew up with this album. I wore out the grooves and the cover was worn and dog earred, but there is no album I ever owned that was as much a part of my growing up. It planted the seeds for a long evolving appreciation of the blues. I would not listen to Robert Johnson and Big Mama Thornton for 20 more years - but I know it all started here - in 8th grade. I don't think I even knew what the blues was when I was in 8th grade, but I knew I liked this. I bought it for the cover only - it looked cool. They certainly weren't getting radio play that I had heard. I had never heard anything like Good Morning Little School Girl or "I woke up this morning", but my favorite was and is, the Stomp. Rock On Alvin.

Pay close attention to the review's title folks. The original issue CD sounds like it was made from a 25th generation cassette tape. I couldn't even listen to it. Luckily they dug up the masters and cleaned up the packaging for WAY better sound. As for the music, TYA fans and any bluesy rock fans in general should enjoy this.

Ten Years After along with Savoy Brown, Yardbirds, Spencer Davis, Fleetwood Mac and John Mayall were all big in the late 60's but none bigger than Ten Tears After and Alvin Lee on guitars and vocals. This album is truely a remarkable piece coming right after their first album "Ten Years After and "Undead" their second. It gives a great overall "feel" of their blues, jazz and rock and roll sound. I love the energy level and youthfulness of this work. This is a must have record in any British Blues, Ten Years After or Roots Rock collection.
And Stoned Woman, the third cut is actually an "anti drug" song. Outstanding guitar work, great song writing and they do a couple covers too! Great, great, great!

I first heard this album when I was 10 years old. My older brother was a big, big TYA fan. He let me borrow this album--and he never got it back!

The opening song, "Bad Scene" starts out with Alvin making high pitched sounds on his guitar ( a sound my dog always perked up and barked to) and then rocks out with a ferocious energy.."Two Time Mama" has a slide guitar to a nice melody (a la George Harrison). "Stoned Woman" has a great riff and now dated lyrics, but I still love it! This segues into "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl",a blues cover which really rocks out and also has a great bass solo from Leo Lyons. The old vinyl side 2 opened with "If Yoou Should Love Me", a a great mid tempo rocker, then the short ballad follows, "I Don't Know That You Don't Know My Name". This segues into "The Stomp", an awesome blues rocker, which is very reminiscent of how the Doors did blues. ...The album ends with the powerful blues rocker "I Woke Up This Morning", featuring Alvin's searing solos...This is the year (1969)TYA made music history at Woodstock, which made them legends..

If you're new to TYA, start with this album! You will love it!

Ssssh, Ten Years After's fourth album (I believe) was released in 1969, one of 2 albums released that year (The other being the interesting Stonedhenge), and this album rocks hard. Alvin Lee goes totally insane on that guitar and lead vocals, and the rest of the band Ric Lee, Chick Churchill, Leo Lyons create a widely varied soundscape that keeps the listener fiending for more. This album seems to be swept under the rug in mentioning considering it was released in 1969, a big year for bands that made it big at the time or earlier, like Led Zeppelin (I and II both that year), The Beatles' Abbey Road, Blind Faith (eponymous), Stones' Let It Bleed among many, many more albums. I believe this album to be a contender for the greats like those considering the raw musical passion infused into this record. As I said, the soundscape is varied. There are many blues-rock songs (which I love), like "Stoned Woman," the Sonny Boy Williamson (and lone) cover "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl," with a crazy extended guitar solo, and the slightly country-blues flavored "Two Time Mama." My favorite song here is the crazy "Bad Scene." At the beginning there is a weird sound effect akin to some kind of animal like a raccoon cooing/whine (???) (I am not a technical audiophile/expert), and it sounds strange, and then a psychedelic guitar explosion then ensues with the energy one becomes accustomed to from Mr. Lee, with trippy vocals. The tempo changes a few times to a few seconds of blues-rock in the middle of the verses, and a guitar solo 3/4 the way throught the song, and I love it. For someone with a short attention span like me, this song keeps me energized. "I Don't Know That You Don't Know My Name" is more acoustic with a slightly psychedelic Middle-Eastern vibe. "The Stomp" is another keyboard ridden blues-rock jam akin to their earliest days, similar in style to some of the music on 1967's debut album, mellow with a slight tinge of jazz. "I Woke Up This Morning" is hard blues-rock with serious guitar work and vocals with as much power as the blues greats. It deals with waking up to see that your gal is long gone and dealing with it. This jam proves that those British blues-rockers can do the blues (and compose like Lee does this song here)as good as the original blues artists of the past. It is sad that this album does not get mentioned as one of the greats because in my opinion, this is some awesome music. This album is a time capsule into the variety of rock 'n roll styles of the end of the 60's, and a perfect example thereof. I highly recommend any TYA album (60's and 70's), and this one especially so.

The final track on the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper album, "A Day in the Life," supposedly contains the sound of a silent dog whistle buried in the mix. I have played this track on quality stereo equipment for my last three dogs (Lucky, Gladys and Dootsie)and witnessed no reaction on their part. Nothing happening. Maybe the silent dog whistle thing is a myth. However, when I inadvertently played the last few seconds of "I Don't Know That You Don't Know My Name," back in 1996 when this album was released, my first dog, Lucky, kind of lifted her ears and, for lack of a better term, Freaked-Out. Gladys (1984-2002) cried and moaned when she heard this part of the song and my current girl, Dootsie, cocked her head from side-to-side, cried a little, then went up to the speaker and made a wee-wee on it (and I hope the Amazon Speech Police-person doesn't ban this wonderful review for use of the word "wee-wee"). Well, that's Dootsie's opinion of rock n roll in general, but all three dogs reacted to the last ten or so secoonds of this track as if THIS was where the silent dog whistle was buried in the mix. Not "A Day in the Life." So try it yourself! Call your dog over. Put on the last part of "I Don't Know..." (you'll need to turn up the sound a little and turn the bass up, too). And see what happens! If your dogs go mental over this like mine have done, I'd sure like to know about it in the Comments section.

Oh, a review of this CD? It's another good sixties rock album--no better or worse than most--just typical. Undead kind of spoiled me for everything else this group did. They could never surpass that live disc, as far as I'm concerned. Alvin Lee's guitar sound on that session was this Charlie-Christian-meets-Jimi-Hendrix sonority that I've never heard from him on any other TYA album. The group's studio albums were never quite as good. So, three-and-a-half stars for Sssh.

I have claimed in my review that TYA's Watt LP was my most frequently played album within the past 35 years. Definitely, there won't be any Watt without its antecedent, Ssssh (1969), the first of the trilogy of TYA's LPs of their most fruitful period 1969-70 (i.e. Ssssh, Cricklewood Green, and Watt). Although quite short in total timing (33:35 min), it is laden with an incredible amount of blues-rock energy, distilled to the bones. High voltage, 100 carat gem. This very record was the basis for the future genuine, unmistakable sound of TYA. On the bluesy web, the power of 5 instruments is presented - Alvin Lee's vocal (although with a limited scale, vigorous enough with lots of rock and blues feeling, and time-to-time, in the more balladic things, even somewhat soft and hollow, in contrast to its unbelievable strength in the shouting and screaming parts), Alvin's virtuoso rock guitar playing legato in an extreme speed, releasing tons of energy all over, Leo Lyons's jerky style of bass-guitar playing (probably he was the one closest to jazz among the foursome, his style being quite different to all other bass-guitar players in the big R`n'R bands). Then comes the superb keyboard playing of Chick Churchill, although inconspicuous, yet perfectly fitting to the sound. His classical rock & blues way of handling piano or Hammond organ is full of feeling. And last but not least, the vigorous, robust, but also highly technical drumming of Alvin's brother, Ric, belongs to the same super class as e.g. that of Led Zep's John Bonham or The Who's Keith Moon.

It was 1969, the year of gross, prolonged, nearly jazzy improvisations and bulky soloing in rock, and also, of experimenting with the new sounds available in the studios of the time. All of this is notable on Ssssh. But (say, in contrast to the long improvisations of e.g. Cream or Grateful Dead of those years), on Ssssh, everything is highly controlled and subsides to the balanced sound and structure of the compositions. This is especially prominent on tracks 4 and 8 - the pieces that have been since quite regularly climaxes of TYA's live shows (even after Alvin's parting the group) - of course, with more abundant improvisations than on the studio-recorded Ssssh. These 2 compositions may serve as typical examples of TYA's songs, with an opening guitar or bass-guitar riff (maybe we would describe it as hard rock if performed by Black Sabbath), with the main theme gradually dissolving into various improvisations with up going tempo and exaltation. Also typical for TYA, a country blues-like style song appears (track 2), as well as the boogie (track 7). As the next typical feature of this and future records, some low- (or rather moderate-) tempo things are included (tracks 5 and 6), making the record pleasantly variable in style. Although track 5 starts like a balladic love song, it ends up in high tempo with full rock and blues power. Also, some new experimental sounds appear on Ssssh, but again, they are functionally built in the songs, without disturbing (this is in contrast with TYA's previous album, Stonedhenge). Well, it is hard to describe. Better go into this - definitely if you like rock & blues of the turn of 60's/70's. No way you might be disappointed - Ssssh is a real gem.

This recording is not quite what I expected. My only reference is the original vinyl version on Deram which was great. Here, the background is weak and the dynamics have all been sucked out through a straw. Should be renamed "Sterilized". This mere shadow of the original recording is disappointing.
This is the 2004 import issued by EMI. I have not heard the other CD versions.