SGR

Okay, Electric Lucifer:

The album begins interestingly enough as demented circus music with some electronically manipulated vocals. Kinda shows you what you’re getting into. Slight intermission into a weird spoken word section about dragons, devils and satan - uhhhh okay. Cherubic Hymn is a bit more normal - cherubs, angels, god and the universal man - I’m detecting some kind of theme here. The subtle electric screeches maintain my interest, but there’s not a whole lot going on here in terms of a groove. Then Program Me - okay this actually has a nice little bass line and Ray Manzarek-esque keyboards - actually, the whole song is a bit Doorsy - the problem I suppose is it doesn’t reach the heights that most Doors songs do, despite being more layered instrumentally than most of their material. The Doors meets post-punk? Something like that. Then comes War - it begins like a bad trip, but progresses like a woozy drunken night - until it hits this weird MIDI section that sounds like a theme song for an SNES or Sega Genesis game - I can’t put my finger on exactly which one, but something along the lines of this:



After the MIDI section is done, we get this vocalized “boop, bahp, wohp, wahp” section that sounds like it’s a distant relative of the vocals used in the Rugrats theme song (no joke) - when it does end, we hear a child’s voice “I don’t wanna play anymore” which doesn’t help with diverting my mind from the Rugrats vibe:



And then it slowly reverts back to the demented circus vibe before slowing down and sounding like a chilled out song from Boards of Canada’s first album. Uh…yeah, this is weird.

National Anthem to the Moon gets things back on track with a nice vocal performance and a nice groove. Chant of the Unborn brings us back to the strange electronic squelches to somewhat disappointing effect. Incantation is alright, though this album is starting to feel a little too layered for its own good. Almost feels like there’s nearly too much going on here. I’ve kinda lost the plot too - mother Mary giving birth - it’s necessary because of…something to do with the Earth. I guess it maintains its namesake quite well. An incantation it might well be.

Angel Child - more religious imagery, but it’s a little underwhelming. And then - Word Game - yeah, not into this one. Definitely a bit contrived, but I see what they were going for. In fact, there’s similar songs still being released today (that I like better) - made me think of the word repetition posing as poetry that Underworld did in Low Burn:



I just don’t think it works here. Sounds too goofy. Song of the Death Machine has this weird vocal melody - what’s this taken from, I feel like I’ve heard it before? - regardless, there’s one spot about a third of the way through the song where the audio channel cuts from just my left ear to both of my ears (yes, I listen on headphones) and this is just jarring to me. Again, just seems like too much going on in this song.

Super Nova is pleasant though - less so once the whispered vocals come in. And the “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” bit, come on now.

Requiem is a bop though. A great song to end the album on - it progresses wonderfully and the vocals are a strength of this song rather than a detriment.

So, for an album that came out in 1970, this seems highly experimental. In that sense, I really respect the amount of exploration and ideas going on here. It’s quite impressive really. But unfortunately, this is an album that my mind likes a lot more than my ears do. The album doesn’t seem to flow naturally - the vocals are often grating, the ideas seem to be sloppily executed at times, and it too often feels like the group is throwing sh1t at the wall and seeing what sticks. Some of it does stick, but the trade off is that you’ve now got a bunch of sh1t on your floor too.

I think I’m comfortable giving this a 5.5/10 - I love what they were going for and how brave they were in doing it - but the end product? Eh….I can’t say I’m likely to revisit this one any time soon. That said, I like it more than the Phil Ochs album, for whatever that’s worth. I really tried to like this one, given my harshness towards the Phil Ochs album, but just couldn’t. I am glad I listened to it though - I didn’t realize this kind of music was being made in 1970.

EDIT: Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, the album cover for this thing is amazing.