Rebirth Malevolent Creation

A Kansas-based rock band whose music was a downbeat mixture of psychedelia and hard rock, Bulbous Creation would have to wait until many years after they broke up to receive any recognition outside their home town. Bulbous Creation were formed by bassist Jim "Bugs" Wine and guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter Paul Parkinson, both of whom grew up in Prairie Village, Kansas, a town about ten miles from Kansas City. Parkinson took up guitar in his early teens and played in a handful of ad-hoc groups during his high-school days, most featuring his good friend Wine on bass. In 1966 Wine went into the military, and he settled in Kansas City, Kansas upon his return three years later. Wine was keen on starting a band, and a newspaper ad brought him together with a talented guitarist, Alan Lewis, and a capable drummer, Chuck Horstmann…

What the world needs now is a comfort-food thrash record that is big, dumb and absolutely killer. Sure, there are plenty of newer bands capable of generating that sort of din. It is exponentially more satisfying when that essential thrash record is put out by established genre greats. TESTAMENT long ago established why they are the answer to many inquiries regarding the best thrash band that is just outside "Big Four" status…

Crown of Creation appeared ten months after their last album, After Bathing at Baxter's, and it doesn't take the same kind of leap forward that Baxter's did from Surrealistic Pillow. Indeed, in many ways, Crown of Creation is a more conservative album stylistically, opening with "Lather," a Grace Slick original that was one of the group's very last forays (and certainly their last prominent one) into a folk idiom. Much of what follows is a lot more based in electric rock, as well as steeped in elements of science fiction (specifically author John Wyndham's book The Chrysalids) in several places, but Crown of Creation was still deliberately more accessible musically than its predecessor, even as the playing became more bold and daring within more traditional song structures…

Crown of Creation appeared ten months after their last album, After Bathing at Baxter's, and it doesn't take the same kind of leap forward that Baxter's did from Surrealistic Pillow. Indeed, in many ways, Crown of Creation is a more conservative album stylistically, opening with "Lather," a Grace Slick original that was one of the group's very last forays (and certainly their last prominent one) into a folk idiom. Much of what follows is a lot more based in electric rock, as well as steeped in elements of science fiction (specifically author John Wyndham's book The Chrysalids) in several places, but Crown of Creation was still deliberately more accessible musically than its predecessor, even as the playing became more bold and daring within more traditional song structures…

Franz Joseph Haydn - The Creation (Die Schopfung)
EAC RIP | WAVPACK + CUE + LOG | HQ Scans
NAXOS | Recorded: 2003 | Released: 2005
VokalEnsemble Koln - Capella Augustina - Andreas Spering

Although The Creation is no stranger to period-instrument performance, two in particular spring to mind as particularly outstanding. The first of these is Christopher Hogwood's on L'Oiseau-Lyre, which is in English and remains the only version to assemble the huge forces for which Haydn actually wrote, with singularly thrilling results. Second, there is Hengelbrock on Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, who demonstrated that at least on recordings the music can sound just as big and colorful, but without extensive doubling of instrumental parts. In his version of The Seasons, René Jacobs accomplished a similar feat, and so does this newcomer, even outdoing Hengelbrock in wringing every last drop of color from Haydn's perennially fresh orchestration. All of the other period performances, including Brüggen, Weil, Harnoncourt (twice), Kuijken, and Gardener, stand at some remove from these three.

Here are the third and fourth albums from Fever Tree, that great lost Texas band of the sixties, and while neither is as good as the first two, both of them (particularly Creation) have some stunning moments…