Polydor 1968 / Think Like A Key 2023
Reality
Gloomy assessment of generational shift from shoulders of the road towards the future in oblivion.
Totally at odds with the colorful outlook behind the Summer of Love, this bleak album seemed to be doomed to linger in obscurity due to cynically acute x-ray vision with which the London teenagers behind it perceived their surroundings – the acid-spiked culture with religious slant leading their peers to mental decay instead of enlightenment. Such an approach dictated the record’s fantasy-enhanced aural imagery, inspired not so much by contemporary rock – although there’s enough psychedelia on display – as by the likes of Stockhausen, because musique concrète is as integral part of “Reality” as its half-hidden melodies: sound effects, all played by youngsters themselves and overseen by producer Vic Keary, overlaying and wrapping what, in essence, are pop tunes.
Their simplicity is illusory, though, as, despite the sharp guitar riff cutting across organ passages of mellifluous opener “A Fairy Tale” – much merrier and less scarier than one may assume this number can go – there’s abyss-esque depth to this platter where Mellotron, on loan from Manfred Mann, and real cello create an orchestral backdrop to both regular songs and avant-garde-scented pieces. It will let the histrionic “Rhubarb!” set the creepy scene here, allowing Kenny Elliott’s wailing pipes and Bob Gibbons’ six strings rage in the vocal-and-instrumental tumult, and will march the choral refrain of the jug-spiced ditty “Denis James The Clown” towards the fairground madness. So while “Steam Tugs” attempts to take off the underground blues rails, the stereo-busting, warmly chugging “Good Old ’59 (We Are Slowly Gettin’ Older)” reaches for vaudeville-rock pastiche, and the cosmic “The World Will End Yesterday” crawls into the echo-laden proto-prog gloom.
However, the bass-propelled “Denis James (Ode To D.J.)” gradually removes the murk to reveal the ensemble’s folk influences and propensity for honeyed harmonies – and to throw the bridge to two of the bonus tracks on offer, laid down by the band for Denis Couldry’s single, whose A-side is the panache-flaunting “James In The Basement” – whereas the vibrant mini-epic “Mainliner” embraces shadows again and unfolds magnificent gothic tapestry for the listener to leave this world behind and dream on. Only the even longer titular composition strips its predecessors cinematic layers in order to bring about the stark, if still slightly spaced out, state of things to the fore and see the flute trills flutter amidst the white noise until the clouds are cleared from the faux-symphonic horizon, and “The Bath Song” soars sentimentally – and yet mentally – under the English, Fabs-reminiscent skies.
They would thunder again later, when the group’s legendary "Death May Be Your Santa Claus" came along, but “Reality” is ingenious in its pale glory.
*****
