Aphrodite's Child - It's Five O'Clock 1969

Aphrodite's Child's second LP was in some ways both a continuation of and departure from their debut album, End of the World. There were some grandiose keyboard-based sub-British psychedelic tracks that could have fit in well on the previous record. The title song's celestial organ, for instance, is much like that on heard on U.K. psychedelic records of the period such as Rupert's People's "Reflections of Charlie Brown," though it's more sentimentally romantic than virtually anything a British band would have released, especially in its vocal delivery. Yet on other cuts, the group took on a markedly different character, whether it was mildly rousing social consciousness ("Wake Up"), pretty fair stomping power pop-psych ("Let Me Love, Let Me Live"), and, least successfully, good-time country-rock ("Take Your Time") and gravelly vaudevillian soul ("Good Time So Fine"). "Funky Mary," on the other hand, is a really cool departure into almost experimental soul-rock, its phased vocals backed by an almost musique concrète wash of bashing drums, Latin-African-flavored bongos, and jazzy vibraphone. If it's guiltier pleasures you're looking for, the unreservedly heart-tuggingly sad "Marie Jolie" is their best (if most saccharine) pop ballad with Mediterranean gondola balladeer overtones complete with accordion solo, though it's End of the World's "Rain and Tears" that the group's most remembered for in that department. "Such a Funny Night," which follows right after that, steers the boat back to pop-psychedelia in the twee British mold. Like their first album, then, it's a very uneven record, but one whose best half or so is pretty enjoyable psych-turning-into-prog with Greek accents to both the vocals and melodies, even if it's never going to be classified as especially hip. AMG.

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Aphrodite's Child - It's Five O'Clock 1969

Aphrodite's Child's second LP was in some ways both a continuation of and departure from their debut album, End of the World. There were some grandiose keyboard-based sub-British psychedelic tracks that could have fit in well on the previous record. The title song's celestial organ, for instance, is much like that on heard on U.K. psychedelic records of the period such as Rupert's People's "Reflections of Charlie Brown," though it's more sentimentally romantic than virtually anything a British band would have released, especially in its vocal delivery. Yet on other cuts, the group took on a markedly different character, whether it was mildly rousing social consciousness ("Wake Up"), pretty fair stomping power pop-psych ("Let Me Love, Let Me Live"), and, least successfully, good-time country-rock ("Take Your Time") and gravelly vaudevillian soul ("Good Time So Fine"). "Funky Mary," on the other hand, is a really cool departure into almost experimental soul-rock, its phased vocals backed by an almost musique concrète wash of bashing drums, Latin-African-flavored bongos, and jazzy vibraphone. If it's guiltier pleasures you're looking for, the unreservedly heart-tuggingly sad "Marie Jolie" is their best (if most saccharine) pop ballad with Mediterranean gondola balladeer overtones complete with accordion solo, though it's End of the World's "Rain and Tears" that the group's most remembered for in that department. "Such a Funny Night," which follows right after that, steers the boat back to pop-psychedelia in the twee British mold. Like their first album, then, it's a very uneven record, but one whose best half or so is pretty enjoyable psych-turning-into-prog with Greek accents to both the vocals and melodies, even if it's never going to be classified as especially hip. AMG.

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Aphrodite's Child - 666 1972

An amazingly bombastic concept album about the Apocalypse of St. John seen as a rock spectacle.Demis Roussos wails the lyrics in a frantically operatic falsetto, while the band pound fiercely through Vangelis' furiously complex music. AMG.

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Aphrodite's Child - End Of The World 1968

The debut album of the only Greek 1960s rock band to make an international impact could have almost been the work of a foppish British psychedelic group on the cusp of turning progressive, if not for the notable foreign accent on the (entirely English-language) vocals. The use of the Mellotron in particular recalls the early psychedelic Moody Blues, as do the mild influences of classical music in the keyboards and melodies. If there's something distinct about Aphrodite's Child, it's a certain Mediterranean sentimental streak to both those melodies and the songs, which get more overtly romantic than virtually any British (or American) psychedelic band would have thought suitable. Though Aphrodite's Child stood up well to the British bands in their level of instrumental accomplishment and production, End of the World is an uneven record. The more heart-wringing numbers will be way too sappy for many listeners, some of the hard-rocking songs have overwrought soulful vocals, and there's a general awkwardness that's inevitable when bands are singing in a non-native language. But this epic melancholic grandeur also makes Aphrodite's Child stick out to some degree among second-division psychedelic acts, and their use of skin-crawling psychedelic effects, while dated, is quite imaginative (especially on the closing "Day of the Fool"). The title cut could well have been a standard European pop ballad without those effects, and is certainly the catchiest song here, if the drippiest, though it was the yet daintier "Rain and Tears" that gave them a hit in parts of Europe. The 2010 U.K. reissue on Esoteric adds useful historical liner notes and two bonus cuts from their 1968 European single "Plastics Nevermore"/"The Other People," which are a bit more pop-oriented than most of the album's material, though not to the songs' detriment. AMG.

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