Atomic Rooster: Death Walks Behind You - 1972

Best known for their incendiary hit single, The Devil's Answer, here is a further exploration into the rock-prog (in that order) world of Atomic Rooster. When I started secondary school in 1970, my musical tastes were developing and I became fascinated by the covers of albums I saw boys from the sixth form carrying around under their arms all day. 

This one, depicting a naked prehistoric-looking man in a cave was one of those I distinctly remember seeing. I knew nothing about the music, though, neither did it appeal to me - I preferred my T. Rex and poppy reggae. It seemed to me to be dense, somewhat pretentious sort of stuff - ideally suited to the greatcoat-wearing long-haired boys I saw toting the album around like a proggy machine gun. 

I also recall being taken to the pictures by the daughter of a friend of my mother and she told me she was into "progressive rock". Ever musically curious, I duly asked the flowing cheesecloth blouse and beads-garbed older teenager to define the genre. She couldn't, other than "it's, well, progressive...". That was my first nonplussed brush with a genre that I have never fully come to terms with. 

Anyway, enough of that - on to this album. 

Atomic Rooster sprung from the ashes of The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown - keyboard man Vincent Crane and later to be ELP dummer Carl Palmer being founder members. The group in their original format were relatively short-lived and this was their second, and most well-received album, from 1970. By then, though, Palmer had already left and was replaced by Paul Hammond. He proved a more than adequate replacement.

Their music is a mixture of Black Sabbath-esque heavy rock and a prog rock willingness to experiment in changes of pace, mystical lyrics and occasional over-indulgence. 

The album opens slowly with a bit of ponderous instrumental noises before Death Walks Behind You breaks out into some walking pace but powerful chugging rock. Vug is a full-on organ-swirling instrumental prog freakout. I can't help but like it, though.

Tomorrow Night has an infectious semi-funky riff and some cowbell-powered drumming. There are vague hints of Devil's Answer in this and it is just so very early seventies heavy rock. It was a single release that actually got to number 11 in the UK charts in 1971, becoming the group's first hit. Again, it's a total freakout, man. Love it. It is the best track on the album, as the singles so often were.

Seven Lonely Streets is a slow, dignified rock ballad, full of organ an riffs and a feel of very early Mott The Hoople about it - all that organ and a shambolic air pervades throughout. 

Running over with sheer heavy metal power is the glorious Sleeping For Years, a track that is early seventies prog metal in a bottle. Rock is found once more on the impressive chug of I Can't Take No More. Prog vibes here? Oh for sure. But overall this is rock.

All heavy groups had to include a piano-driven ballad on their albums, it seemed, and the Rooster's contribution was the bleak-ish Nobody Else. After two and a half minutes, however, it is as if the band got bored with the balladry and decided to rock out again - they do so magnificently too. 

Gershatzer is nearly eight minutes of guitar, drum and organ freaking out. It is just so typical of its era and sub-genre. Eight minutes of madcap instrumental? Coming right up. Actually, for me, it is where the prog overwhelms the rock and becomes way too indulgent. Let that not detract from the track's killer passages, however, of which there definitely are a couple. Why, there's even a drum solo. It was 1972 after all. 

Then, how could I forget the non-album single The Devil's Answer? That really should have made it on to the album. I loved it when I first heard it in 1971 and I still think it sounds fantastic today. It stands out as being more instantly commercially accessible than the rest of the material - with its enigmatic lyrics, superb build-up intro, killer riff and brass interjections together with an organ sound straight from the late sixties. It is one of the classic rock singles. 

Add The Devil's Answer to this album, and Play The Game, Tomorrow Night's robustly rocking 'b' side, and you have an even better one. Crazy, man.