Midi Minuit Moon And Midnight (1970)

Released in 1970 by the Dutch group Earth & Fire, this debut presents a collection of fine psychedelic pop that shows the band starting to develop their signature sound. One of the most distinctive features of the music is the lead vocal of (female) vocalist Jerney Kaagman - vocals are in English with a bit of an accent. Jerney has a nice style and a great sense of melody; come to think of it, bouncy, and at times, melancholy melodies are everywhere on this album. The rich vocal harmonies are also nice and add a lot to the sound. Other distinctive features include the Hammond organ playing, which assumes a very "churchy" sound at times, along with some hard-edged electric guitar tones. Overall, these guys are fine players.

Charisma were a band from the Hartford, Connecticut area, and were very typical of the confused American year of 1970. It basically means that bands were throwing any and everything against the wall hoping it would stick - or in practical terms - obtaining radio airplay. And Charisma falls in line with their mix of blues, hard rock, progressive, psych, and old fashioned rock and roll. It's a mess basically. But some of these albums had gems in the midst of the ordinary, and that's where we come in. Charisma has a strong Hammond organ and overall keyboard presence, and there are a couple of tracks that display this in an instrumental progressive rock format ('Street Theatre', 'Ritual Dance of the Reptiles'). There are other very good proto-prog/bluesy numbers in 'Leopold's Ghost' and 'The Age of Reptiles'. The rest is take it or leave it…