Mournin’ --- Night sun --- 1972 (Zebra)
Recommended by Unknown Soldier
So Marillion weren’t the first ones to use that morning/mourning idea? Interesting. Ten years before “Script for a jester’s tear” took the world of progressive rock by storm, this band from Germany was already making that pun. Seems this was their one and only album, recorded a year before they split forever, and for a supposedly prog record it doesn’t have much in the way of long epic tracks, the longest just over seven minutes. That’s barely getting started in prog terms!
We open with stop/start guitar in that particularly proggy way I hate as “Plastic shotgun” is the first salvo Night Sun decide to send across our bows, but it’s definitely of its time, with Robert Plant “wildman” vocals and a very Purple/Zep vibe to the music, plus a rather stupid “dark scary voice” to end the short opener, as lush keyboards from Knut Rossler add a touch of class to “Crazy woman”, but then Bruno Schabb comes in with the vocal and it goes pretty much the same way as the first track. There is some very good guitar from Walter Kirchgassner which really livens up the track, and I take back what I said a sentence ago; this is a whole lot better. Even so, it plays like a bad copy of early Zep, with a mixture of hard rock and blues; can’t really see this as being Metal of any sort, even Proto-metal.
Schaab really does nothing for me, in fact he’s the thing I like least about this album. With a different singer this could be quite good, but he’s determined to “Plant” (!) his own identity all over it, and it doesn’t work. Spacey, weird intro to “Got a bone of my own” with some rising organ (yes ooer I know!) similar to that on the first Supertramp album, very swirly and eerie. The song is the longest on the album, just over seven minutes, so I guess a long intro is in order. Still, we’re three minutes in now as a dirty guitar riff begins and still no vocals. The heavy organ presence has now faded away, stripping the song back and revealing real teeth behind the originally prog-heavy instrumental. Into the fourth minute now and still no sign of Schaab; could this be an instrumental?
No, here he comes. Five minutes in and he makes his appearance, immediately in my opinion dragging down the track. Some nice echoey organ presages a tempo shift to a mid-paced blues boogie, which really is the making of the song as Kirchgassner and Rossler trade licks, then we’re back to the original harder rock riffs as vocals come back into the mix. We are however nearly at the end of the song, and it exits on a powerful guitar riff, taking us into “Slush pan man”, which certainly opens on a much more Metal-oriented guitar. Kirchgassner lets himself go here, channeling Tony Iommi in a dark, grinding riff that almost, but not quite, adds a touch of Doom to proceedings.
Interesting and accomplished drum solo (and that’s saying something) from Ulrich Staudt gives “Living with the dying” more weight than it probably deserves, while Rossler runs off an organ solo to rival Ray Manzarek from The Doors. Well maybe not, but it’s pretty damn fine. That organ is again employed to open “Come down”, where everything seems to slow down in a nice bluesy ballad, which for once softens even Schaab’s annoying voice, making him sound like a cheaper Jon Anderson, and the song itself certainly betrays its progressive rock roots before Kirchgassner kicks it up the arse and takes it in a harder direction. Of course our Bruno can’t keep his voice as it has been for the last two minutes and is back aping the Led Zep frontman, but I’m getting used to that.
Very evocative guitar solo to finish the song off, then “Blind” trips along on a nice boogie rhythm, Rossler’s organ painting the flourishes under his bandmate’s swaggering guitar, while “Nightmare” is probably the closest this band get to true metal, with a rapid-fire vocal delivery and guitars that are fast, but somehow come across as more like a faster Deep Purple, but without the raw talent. It’s actually quite funny. In an annoying way. Closer "Don’t start flying" starts out with a sax break that really sounds like the opening to “Baker Street” by Gerry Rafferty, although this would not be penned for another six years. It is however too jazzy for me and in my opinion closes the album terribly.
TRACKLISTING
1. Plastic shotgun
2. Crazy woman
3. Got a bone of my own
4. Slush pan man
5. Living with the dying
6. Come down
7. Blind
8. Nightmares
9. Don’t start flying
I have to be brutally honest: I pretty much really hated this album. When a rec comes from such a valued source as Unknown Soldier I'm always eager to give it a chance, but I can’t see how this can be rated as any sort of metal, and even allowing for its age it has really dated. The vocals set my teeth on edge, and though there were one or two good tracks to take away from this experience, it is not one I would wish to repeat. I think I’d rather listen to Grindcore. Well maybe not, but you get the idea.