Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come
Journey

If rock could undergo genetic engineering, any crazy listener would have the chance to experiment with some of the most extravagant or improbable crossbreeds. One might fantasize about the incredible hybrid that would result from pairing Diamanda Galas and Avril Lavigne, or Tom Waits and Take That. Without pushing to such blasphemous limits, the history of rock sometimes proves to be more daring than one might think: what would happen, for example, if the "genetic material" of Hawkwind's music was merged with that of Joy Division? In this case, the answer might already be ready and available to every listener, and it would probably sound like "Time Captives," the opening track of "Journey" by Arthur Brown and his Kingdom Come.

The start of this album, one of the most unique creations in rock history, is entrusted to the solitary pulse of a drum machine. Indeed, after arguing with a plethora of drummers in previous years (including a certain Carl Palmer), Brown made the radical decision for his new album to replace the human element with a purely electronic one, personally programmed and controlled; a remarkably happy move, as it pushes the entire band into delightfully vintage-electronic, disorienting, and fascinating territories. In "Time Captives" all the other instruments gradually enter, bass and guitar insisting sparsely on a single note and synthesizers that, after a sudden central acceleration resembling an electronic version of Ian Gillan's screams at the end of "Child in Time", create the tapestry of the actual track, a chilly and (in the end) melancholic excursion into space, where truly space-rock and dark seem to collide like in a particle accelerator (with even the risk of creating black holes).

We thus enter those bizarre territories so dear to Arthur Brown since the time of "Fire" and which have made him an anarchic prophet of rock, from whom one can expect any surprise, yet also a truly remarkable consistency. Pleasurable are the instrumentals "Triangles", a spatialized waltz with exquisite guitar and synth interweavings (surely foretelling the King Crimson of the '80s), and "Conception", that is, Caribbean rock perhaps as will be made a couple of centuries from now. "Gypsy" starts with hard rock traits, then moves to more cosmic territories (thanks also to the excellent use of the mellotron), with an almost operatic interpretation by the good Brown, finally, suddenly, undergoes an acceleration that takes it into more threatening atmospheres, where riffs and themes echo in a sci-fi and almost depersonalizing context, which Kingdom Come had already explored on previous albums. These are tracks that leave a mark, also thanks to the interpretation of the captain of this adventure, a kind of Peter Hammil or Frank Zappa intent on sending signals from some remote galaxy (perhaps right next to that of the German "Kosmische Courier"): for example, the gothic-interstellar set of "Superficial Roadblocks" and the futuristic hard blues (remarkable bass work) and partly improvised "Come Alive". In between, a track that would have deserved some commercial success: "Spirit of Joy", where Brown's music and voice manage to materialize the title's meaning in three minutes of hissing synths, post-hippy chords, and singable choruses, a sort of "Silver Machine" with a dash of mysticism.

Thus completes a musical journey (Journey, indeed) among the most successful in rock, an album that would gladly resound from the onboard hi-fi speakers of the first spaceship en route to Alpha Centauri...

P.S.: The album in question is now available in an economical version (and it can also happen, as with me, to see it inexplicably placed among the heavy metal CDs...). The only part sacrificed is the beautiful original cover, now replaced (for who knows what obscure reason) with the photo of a rose.