The Web - Theraphosa Blondi 1970

One presumes that whoever was responsible for green-lighting this LP -- on a pretty big British label -- either didn't last long at his position or was in such favor at the company that he couldn't get fired no matter what impractical decisions he made. In short, records from the early progressive rock era don't get much stranger, inconsistent, or uncommercial than this one. It's beyond bizarre, which doesn't mean that it's very good. The biggest drawbacks are the vibrato-laden lead vocals, which sound kind of like Ray Collins of the Mothers of Invention might have if he: A) wasn't nearly as good a singer; and B) was singing without a trace of satirical irony. And in fact, much of the opener, "Like the Man Said," sounds like a humorless variation on the early Mothers of Invention -- the complex, shifting song structure and blend of rock and experimentalism are there, but none of the wit or knowing comedy is evident. It gets more distasteful than that when the track incorporates Jethro Tull-like sections and glides into a histrionic cover of "Sunshine of Your Love." Yet the very next cut is a sensitive middle-of-the-road pop ballad for which the quasi-operatic singing is wholly ill-equipped. Next is a percussive instrumental with an African-meets-West Indies flavor; then there's a seeming, and again wildly incongruous, attempt to emulate Burt Bacharach's smooth late-'60s pop with "1,000 Miles Away," though the singer surely ain't no Dionne Warwick. By the time it's followed by a swinging jazzy flute-paced instrumental, "Blues for Two T's" (actually the best thing on the album), it's apparent this band was thoroughly confused as to what direction to pursue. More messy zigzagging follows with the exotica of "Kilimanjaro," which is the kind of thing you might have expected to hear at a Hawaiian lounge bar in the 1950s (though the singing would likely have been better), and an ill-conceived cover of "Tobacco Road" that shifts into an early jazz-rock version of "America" (from West Side Story). As to who might have bought this record when it was released, that's anyone's guess; it's not just an unappetizing mixture, but it must have also been thoroughly unmarketable. AMG.

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