Customer Reviews

T-Rex

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

 

 

This newly issued remaster of the first T Rex album is available in the UK only--and that's a shame. The album captures Bolan moving from the acoustic Tyrannosaurus Rex sound to the T Rex pop-rock sound that would make him famous. Very good to excellent tunes of both varieties plus bonus of the great breakthrough single "Ride a White Swan" backed with "Summertime Blues." Also alternate takes. Buy this one--not the remaster issued in the '90s without the bonus tracks. Great sound.

In a rather ecstatic review for the earlier unremastered Castle
CD of this first T.Rex album from 1970, I declared it Bolan's absolute best, a transitional work that combined prime but far more accessible examples of the earlier acoustic Tyrannosaurus Rex sound ("The Visit", "The Time Of Love Is Now", "Root Of Star") with thrilling embryonic versions of the T.Rex electric pop sound ("Jewel", "Childe", "Beltane Walk", "Is It Love?", "One Inch Rock"), with not a single weak track in sight and capturing Bolan's magical personality at its purest. The last album with the two-man lineup of Marc Bolan and Mickey Finn, it was also the first album to feature strings, drums and Flo & Eddie on backing vocals (albeit on only one song, the gorgeous "Seagull Woman").

My opinion remains unchanged and has only grown with time; what was always frustrating was the thin sound of all previous CD releases, which did not do justice to such an important work. This latest deluxe reissue finally gives the album its due, with a loud and clear remaster that highlights every explosive guitar solo, epic scream and production trick. The lyrics and artwork
are restored, although unfortunately the bonus tracks are the weakest of all the remasters: while the seminal non-LP single "Ride A White Swan"/"Summertime Blues" is included, the outtakes sound almost identical to the released versions despite being labeled "works in progress". Outside of a slight remix, I found nary a difference to the album versions. What's more, the fantastic instrumental outtake "Deep Summer" is not included, one of the few T.Rex cuts to remain in the hands of the bootleggers. Despite this, I would recommend everyone get their hands on a copy of this reissue, if only for the quality of the album itself, combined with the vastly improved sound.

This magical album for Marc Bolan and his newly christened band T. Rex is a wonderful timepiece from the 1970's. It is the perfect mix of Bolan's fanciful imagination, his lyrical poetry, and producer Tony Visconti's string arrangements. It would be the album that launched the T. Rex craze in Britain for the next three years.
The "T. Rex" album marked the transition from Bolan's gentle Tolkien inspired Tyrannosaurus Rex acoustic days to the Electric Warrior, the king of fashion conscious, mascara heavy Glam Rock. Many early fans were quite disappointed with the change, as their homegrown favorite had now become the darling of the teenage set. The single "Ride a White Swan" from this time (that should be included on this CD) paved the way for the T. Rex hit machine, and was a staple in Bolan's live set until his all-too-early death in 1977. It was a huge hit in the UK and has been covered numerous times since Bolan's death.

The album opens with the short intro "The Children Of Rarn," Bolan's own piece of mythology that bridges the divide between Tyrannosaurus Rex to T. Rex beautifully. Interestingly enough, Marc had created a whole 20 minute piece around this track ("The Children of Rarn Suite") that didn't see the light of day until Tony Visconti released a version back in 1978. It could have been a wonderful concept piece. The songs that follow on the album are simply beautiful works of poetry set to music. Highlights are "Jewel," "The Visit," "Summer Deep," and "Diamond Meadows" (most recently heard in the movie "Velvet Goldmine").

While each T. Rex album is near and dear to my heart, this probably isn't the best place to start if you're interested in Marc Bolan and his band. The album of choice for a starting point would be "Electric Warrior," followed by "The Slider," then this album. Once you're under Bolan's spell, you're hooked!

"Electric Warrior" may have surprised a good many people, but only those who had not been paying attention. Through the folky haze of their formative years, before Bolan saw the dinosaur move, Tyrannosaurus Rex had already spun out dozens of great riffs and wonderful, highly stylized songs that struggled to find much of an audience. We could trade pre-electric playlists all day long. The fact remains that until Leo Fender and Les Paul put in their first appearance with the band by the light of the magical moon on "Beard of Stars" -- still a few years prior to the Big Bang -- it seemed that a significant audience might never arrive. But still, with all those years of simple acoustic accompaniment as ballast, this rewired T. Rex produced what might be their most characteristic record. Perhaps, arguably, their best. It's a polarizing thought, "T. Rex" vs. "Electric Warrior", on par with the "Revolver" vs. "Sergeant Pepper" debate. But the question is not without merit. (For the record, my votes go to "Revolver" and "T. Rex".)

The pose here is pre-glam, more candid, less rehearsed. There is a weird, beautiful shimmer and gleam to these songs that still has the innocent waxy glow of the right honorable early days -- a glow that becomes a hard silicon shine on "Electric Warrior." These songs are still sentimental, still strangely strange and still comparatively as eclectic as they are electric. And lurking behind almost every track, just within earshot, is that thing that became so destructively popular. That twitchy hiccup on top of a four-square beat, solid as rock, fluid as folk, light as air and bright as a star.

Since the source material is better to begin with, the sonic improvements here are not as spectacular as the much needed salvation work done to the still earlier Regal Zonophone recordings. That narrow range of acoustic guitar matched so closely to Bolan's voice that is typical of the earlier records is not an easy sound to deal with in the first place. Thanks to Visconti's and Bolan's maturing producing, writing and performing abilities "T. Rex" sounded pretty good when it was first released. The remastering is carefully done with an emphasis on preserving the thin, concise quality of Bolan's pre-Warrior sound. And the bonus tracks -- there are so many now, on so many different releases that it's getting tough to keep up -- are interesting enough and smart enough to include the "Ride a White Swan" single which was on the US album, but not on this, the original UK version.

"T. Rex" is one of those pure and eccentric records that come around now again -- products of those transitional times when a style is fully formed but hasn't quite yet been set in stone. You know, the kind of stone that guarantees vast success in exchange for rigid predictability. From this vantage point we still have "Warrior" and "Slider" to look forward to before things begin to get a little too slick. And, once more, we have the chance to spend another golden moment in Summer Deep.

The self-titled debut under the name "T Rex" is a bit... odd. I'd label it as melodic, quiet folk rock created in a Nick Drake kind of way, and even enticing on numerous occasions thanks to a good knack for writing vocal melodies. The instrumental portions of the record need a bit of work, though.

It's not quite as polished songwriting-wise compared to Nick Drake's first album for example, but T Rex does contain a really nice pleasant atmosphere. For those who've been hearing T Rex's glam rock material all these years and wonder what it would be like to hear the band stripped down to basically sounding like an album recorded in somebody's home with only a few instruments, here it is in all its semi inconsistent glory.

I think the album is pretty good overall, but no way is it a 5-star album. It has a few major flaws. First of all, "The Wizard" is 9 minutes of total madness and chaotic rambling. It does actually go somewhere for the first two minutes when a rather ominous sounding folk ditty gets under way, but that quickly dissolves and a display of Marc Bolan expanding his vocal range (when it's NOT even necessary to hear him constantly hitting those annoying high notes, might I add) really distracts from the psychedelic experience I imagine the band was going for.

The highlights are the shorter tracks which pretty much means the *rest* of the album. The stretch of songs from "Diamond Meadows" to "Suneye" is absolutely spectacular. My favorite song on the entire album is "Beltane Walk". Hearing this album, it doesn't sound like there's ANY signs of a powerful glam rock band just on the horizon and about to make history- instead it feels like a band still attempting to find itself in the world of evergrowing and original list of influential rock artists that were so dominate back in the day, and even resembling early David Bowie on several occasions.

For some reason, the first few songs don't move me one bit. Songs like "Jewel" feel like incomplete and barely acceptable filler, and it doesn't really improve until "The Time of Love is Now".

This is perhaps a more interesting listen for the sake of curiosity to discover what the band was like before the glam rock days. They were playing folk rock that ranges from relatively soft to slightly psychedelic, but nothing truly earth-changing and bizarre until Electric Warrior was unleashed on the world in 1971.

T. Rex did not have nearly as much success in the US as in the UK and Europe, so if all you know is "classic rock" radio, you would get the impression that T-Rex were a teen-idol one hit wonder. "Get It On" certainly is a great song, but there's a lot more worthy music where that came from.

This album is the first one that uses the shortened T. Rex name, and is a further step in the development that began with A Beard of Stars a year earlier. There is much more electric guitar and bass than in the past, but most of it is still acoustic rhythm guitar driven. The percussion is mostly bongos and other assorted instruments, with very little, if any, drums on the songs on the original album. The CD includes the non-LP single "Ride a White Swan / Summertime Blues", which is yet another step in the direction towards their signature rock sound of "Electric Warrior".

A lot of the songs are still in the same "Donovan meets Syd Barrett meets Tolkien" style as in the earlier Tyrannosaurus Rex albums from the 60's. While mostly acoustic, it does have quite a few quirks and edges. Perhaps the most notable song is the extended "the Wizard", which is apparently one of the earliest songs that Marc Bolan wrote. The vocals on some parts of it become downright grating, but the song is ultimately very rewarding and definitely essential T-Rex.

The general consensus is correct. Electric Warrior is the place to start, followed by The Slider, which is only slightly lesser because it is basically "Electric Warrior"s twin, but still excellent. Then you will want to get this album and Tanx, which is the last great album they did, before the quality dropped off steeply.

Beard of stars introduced audiences to the possibilities of marc bolan in an electric setting... T. rex cemented the vision in characteristic good form.. Marc bolan was not quite as well recieved in america as abroad but his star did shine every bit as bright as david bowie or anyone else in the so-called glam genre. Actually, when these first albums were released glam was not even born yet - not even a concept.. Bolan emerged from the same folk-rock, experimental stock that david bowie took root with in the 60's.. Not far from syd barrett his early releases with tyrannausauras rex were eerie, melodic, and quite stirring on a very basic almost mythological level.. Beard of stars, as i mentioned earlier, made a change in a new direction.. With 't-rex' the first album to abreviate the band's name came the first really commerically friendly (and yet very different musically speaking) tunes.. Bolan and mickey fin had developed an infectious boogie style (which became a t. rex trademark throughout the 70's until bolan's death)... Despite these breakthroughs, the album is still not the typical fare you would expect from a big-selling group (or duo).. it opens in a curious fashion with 'the children of rarn' (thank god bolan always was a true original i just love it).. and always retains a sort of curious almost psychodelic and yet modern sounding quality.. In fact it was this kind of music that defied categorization that probably lead to the term glam (which is not really a useful musical term because it says virtually nothing about the music - oh well we must catogorize i guess)... The music really heats up on such tracks as beltane walk and one-inch rock - a song writing technique that would later reach for the stars in 'electric warrior' - yet for me it is the little tracks in between that make the album (as in many t rex albums).. The world really could not see marc bolan coming - but when they did it was almost too late - another shooting star...