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Superb previously unreleased album by a band that was formed from the remains of "Them" and toured and lived in late '60s America. Great late '60s psychedelia.
Truth, Of Them and Other Tales (Epilogue). Although Truth never released an LP while they were together, in 1995 this 68-minute CD was salvaged from 1969-70 recordings. Most of them were made for a soundtrack of an obscure film, with three other tracks coming from a Chicago studio session during the brief time in which Ray Elliott was in the band. Perhaps to the surprise of some listeners aware of Truth's Them connections, there's not much of a hard R&B-blues-British Invasion influence. It's far more reminiscent of late-'60s California guitar psychedelia, along the lines of some of the more economic and harmony-driven bands in that style, like Moby Grape and (more distantly) Love. In this respect, Truth recall Fat Mattress (Noel Redding's group), another act with heavy British Isles roots that took major cues from West Coast harmonized psych, though Truth and Fat Mattress aren't extremely similar. Truth play late-'60s psychedelic rock with a breezy lightness, yet with some guts, anchored by extremely versatile guitar lines by the underrated Jim Armstrong. The songs might not be classic, but they're very pleasant go-with-the-flow period sequences of images, with one vocal (on "Blackboard Words") closely approximating the sound of late-'60s Roger McGuinn. On "Sonic Sitar," the group expands upon the raga-rock explored in the post-Van Morrison Them's best cut, "Square Room," and in fact "Archimed's Pad (Squared Room)" is an impressive instrumental remake of "Square Room" that's an underrated highlight of the whole raga-rock genre, with its hypnotic drawn-out interplay of drones and Indian-influenced guitar melodies. The three songs recorded with Ray Elliott on flute and piano go into jazzier grooves with good effect, adding nice icing to a record that's on the whole better (and certainly more consistent) than either of the late-'60s Them albums on which some of the Truth musicians played.
I was surprised to learn that this magnificent CD, one of the best retrospective releases of the mid-1990s, is still in print. Apparently a second run was made for a licensing deal which then fell through, leaving the good people at Epilogue with a big stack of CDs for a release that had already run its course on the home market. The good news is that 8 years down the line a new generation of heads have an equal opportunity to jump into this exhilarating roller coaster ride of west coast-style guitarpsych at its finest.
TRUTH is one of the more obscure twigs on the amazingly vast tree that grew out of a 1964 Belfast hoodlum r'n'b act first (and last) known as Them. You've heard the great Van-era recordings, the even greater Belfast Gypsies recordings, the inconsistent but occasionally brilliant Texas-era recordings -- but prior to this CD you're unlikely to have heard this Chicago-based franchise, featuring guitarist Jim Armstrong and vocalist Kenny McDowell from the Belfast/Texas incarnations of the band, lured back to the US by a music biz impresario circa 1969. The ex-Themers teamed up with two local musicians and Truth was born, rehearsing like crazy and playing local Windy City gigs with some success. I'll refer to John Berg's very detailed liner notes for the full story and move on to the music.
Impressive credentials for sure, but Truth needn't be embarrassed in this company, because their music is faultless and at its best outright stunning. So very few bands manage to play music that allows space for the members full range of versatility without degrading into prog or fusion; Truth manage to do so and still deliver melodic, open-ended music. The opening "Music is life" is a program declaration as good as any; complex rhythms and bold chord shifts, yet as inviting as a Byrds 45 with McDowell's joyful vocals setting the tone for all that follows. "6 O'Clock Alarm" is your standard white-collar grind lament except with a 5-minute Garcia/Lesh-style jam in the middle, before the vocals pull you back to planet Earth.
I have to refrain myself from describing every track in detail but all of it progresses along the superb '69 Dead/Stalk-Forrest axis described above; an exquisite sitar track adds a foreign flavor, while the 10-minute revisit to the Texan Them's "Square room" shows just how good raga rock can be if done with serious intentions -- like a sequel to "East-West" by the Butterfields 3 years earlier. There is another great track called simply "HIGH!" which is how you feel when hearing it, and a take on "Circle round the sun" that suits the band very well. The CD closes with the 3 tracks off the aforementioned acetate, and they're just as swell, bringing in organ and flute and a slight British influence (think Traffic) to produce one of the very best tracks on the entire CD, the powerful "Castles in the sand" that is likely to blow anyone's head off. There is some very minor surface noise on the acetate tracks while the earlier recordings are crystal clear and can be played loud as fuck!
Most of the unreleased 1960s-70s stuff that appears is disappointing and shows mainly why it wasn't released in the first place, but this Truth CD is the perfect antithesis of that cynicism -- just like Stalk-Forrest Group it's better than almost anything that WAS released at the time.
01 - Music Is Life (4'13")
02 - 6 O'Clock Alarm (9'14")
03 - Mysterios (1'21")
04 - Music From Big Puce (4'27")
05 - Country Funk (0'39")
06 - Blackboard Words (2'47")
07 - Sonic Sitar (3'18")
08 - High! (6'35")
09 - Archimed's Pad (Square Room) (11'4")
10 - Getting Better (5'27")
11 - Circle 'Round The Sun (5'19")
12 - Ride The Wind (6'37")
13 - Castles In The Sand (7'18")
14 - October ´68 (The Tears That You Cry) (5'23")
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