Direction 1968 / Think Like A Key 2025
British purveyors of pop-embroidered psychedelia set their stakes for late-Sixties conquest of penumbral stalk-rock.
Elmer Gantry’s Velvet Opera
From today’s perspective, England’s post-“Sgt. Pepper” landscape seems to have been littered with pseudo-concept platters of which too little stood the test of time, yet those precious few that did became cult classics, despite retaining the allure of period pieces – or, rather, pieces of imaginary world, rooted in reality but festooned with fantasy. The “F” words were very important then, and this London bunch felt it acutely enough, only if their Brummie bruvs, also infamous for onstage furiosity, brought “Flowers In The Rain” as a finishing flourish to the Summer Of Love, Elmer Gantry-penned number “Flames” sounded as simultaneously seductive and sinister as any shift to a darker future should. Still, the ensemble leader’s name, bestowed upon Dave Terry like another moniker would upon Vincent Furnier, was the sole concession to alter-ego scenarios their contemporaries used to act out, and when the Gantry-fronted foursome’s debut album, a lone full-length offering from the original quartet, hit the shelves, the musicians’ didn’t want to hide their personalities behind the sonic extravaganza.
There’s no unifying theme on offer, however, yet while the brief, funky-infectious “Intro” piques the listener’s interest by introducing the performers and segueing into the insistently scintillating “Mother Writes” as though to suggest there is one, it’s flow of the moods and the songs’ spectacular melodic surface, moderately histrionic as theater binoculars on the record’s cover illustrate, that take the audience on a not-quite-Edwardian, albeit baroque-tinctured, trip towards non-existent past. Nevertheless, with John Ford’s almost-lead bass at the fore, locking into Richard Hudson delicate drums to lift up Elmer’s sweet vocals on the jolly “Mary Jane” which extols the recreational virtues of weed, reveries enter the frame to become a focus not only for the cosmic-to-comic cut “Dream Starts” but also for a warmly lit B-side “Dreamy” which features among a generous serving of bonus material on this reissue. Weaving a wondrously wailed soul cover “I Was Cool” into the platter’s context as a preface to their own instrumentally impressive “Walter Sly Meets Bill Bailey” where Colin Forster’s guitar passages shine, the collective build suspense to whip up a frenzy and go for the pulsing jugular of “Lookin’ For A Happy Life” which appears, sprinkled with the band’s harmonies and Jimmy Horowitz’s piano ripple, after the raga of “Air” which Hud’s sitar licks render hypnotic.
Alongside other album tracks, the nigh-heavy yet immensely groovy “Flames” too hints at the group’s in-concert frantic antics, but the lysergic-lazy, deceptively lulling “What’s The Point Of Leaving” simply fans the lingering spaced-outness of it all, and the Mellotron-colored “Long Nights Of Summer” gently shakes off genuine bliss to hint at everlasting sorrow. Despair may spill into the ruminative “Reaction Of Young Man” which channels “The Graduate” in soft tones, and “Now She’s Gone” is filled with similar orchestral misery, so the longplay’s finale must have sounded unusually sad back in the day. Now, the additional tunes, including the screen-destined ditty “Talk Of The Devil” – written by Eric Woolfson, who would invite Gantry to work with ALAN PARSONS PROJECT, once VELVET OPERA got largely forgotten, except by fans of STRAWBS, Ford ‘n’ Hud’s new home – and such catchy singles as “Volcano” as well as “Salisbury Plain” and “A Quick ‘B'” that expose the combo’s bluesy aspect, plus outtakes like folk-flavored “And I Remember” and “To Be With You” which paints an adventurous picture in electric crunch, and demos, turn “Opera” into triumphant memento.
A gem worthy of fresh evaluation.
****4/5
