Hard, Heavy and a Classic 1970
This is the section for a classic borderline album, that I feel belongs in with another genre, but is always worthy of being mentioned here. Any album I place here, is easily worthy of a placing on my top 10 list. It's either a highly acclaimed album of just a forgotten or underrated gem. I'll try and include at least one album per year in this section and in some cases possibly two if I can't just decide on one album.
Atomic Rooster Death Walks Behind You 1970 (B&C)
Progressive Rock-Hard Rock
Progressive rock going on a date with hard rock!
The Album
Atomic Rooster were something of an enigma, they were good and didn't really seem to realize it! Band leader and organist Vince Crane had two great line-ups that lasted for their first two albums, before the line-ups on both occasions broke up, leaving us with a band that could've gone on to become major players. The line-up for this their second album
Death Walks Behind You contained vocalist and guitarist John Du Cann and drummer Paul Hammond (who had a replaced a certain Carl Palmer who did the drumming on the debut album) and both were amazing additions and now joined organist Vince Crane. The band had emerged not long before, from the ashes of the Crazy World of Arthur Brown when Vince Crane set the band up and moved them into a progressive rock direction, which is the best label for their excellent debut album the eponymous
Atomic Rooster also released in 1970.
Death Walks Behind You their second is a superb fusion of the progressive rock of the debut and hard rock which are both fused together here. On listening to the album, the title track "Death Walks Behind You" Has a creepy start and then quickly sets the tone of the album with its heavy instrumentation and feel, as does the instrumental track "Vug". "Tomorrow Night" and "7 Streets" are great tracks where by now you know that the instrumentation and singing are going to be rock solid throughout with the songs to match. "Sleeping for Years" The best track on the album and also the hardest rocking! "I Can't Take No More" Great track and I'm certain ELO swiped a section of the song for "Don't Bring Me Down". "Nobody Else" Starts off as the most tranquil song on the album and actually reminds me a bit of early Toto before the thing starts rocking up. "Gershatzer" The most progressive track on the album as the band show their dexterity throughout the track, the whole thing lasts an impressive 8 minutes.
The fusion of progressive rock with hard rock was still something of a novelty back in 1970, despite the fact that bands such as Deep Purple and Lucifer's Friend had already laid the foundations of this style, a style that Uriah Heep would go onto dominate. Deep Purple had made the switch to hard rock back in 1969 and never looked back after
In Rock. Whereas with Atomic Rooster, I always saw them as a progressive rock band that had hard rock tendencies and those tendencies were most evident on this album. This album was their crowning achievement and they never came close to matching this again, which of course wasn't helped by the multiple line-up changes they had. This is one hell of a hard rocking album at times, especially when they drop out the progressive elements. The song writing and playing of Vince Crane and John Du Cann was simply first rate here as well. Paul Hammond's drumming was so good, that Carl Palmer wasn't even missed. Over other albums, Vince Crane would carry the band on through diverse styles, whilst John Du Cann and Paul Hammond would later feature in Hard Stuff......errrrrrrrr surprisingly a hard rock band.
Death Walks Behind You is the perfect example of both progressive rock and hard rock in bed together, it's just a shame that one kicked the other out!
John Du Cann- Guitar/Vocals
Vince Crane- Organ
Paul Hammond- Drums
Production- Atomic Rooster