Dr. Z
Three Parts to My Soul

The Darkness has crossed the border, conquering a significant portion of land from the Light.

We are in 1971, and Professor Keith Keyes from North Wales University delves into the occult. After the previous year's most "floral" single "Lady Ladybird b/w People In The Street" (also under the name Dr. Z), together with the trusted rhythm section formed by Bob Watkins (drums and percussion) and Rob Watson (bass), he releases this incredible work, which over the years has become the most sought-after record in the entire catalog of the English Vertigo Swirl Label... of which allegedly only 80 copies exist.

Keyes shares his vision of life beyond life itself, indeed he (we) goes further, opening the album with a sort of Ten Commandments in reverse, "Evil Woman's Many Child" are the whispered voice of man's conscience and the sung voice of his mind that list the deepest debasements humanity can reach in a kind of "salvific" path directly into the arms of the Devil... "Offer any passion to your mind, Let the Devil free to show his hand, And stop me - if you can, Yeah if you can, Kill, kill, kill" conclude this malevolent and tense track, played on a structure typical of the English prog of the period (but infinitely darker and more gloomy), living with anguish from start to finish the burns of the human soul, where Keyes' harpsichord and keyboards magnificently make up for the absence of a guitar. "Spiritus, Manes Et Umbra" is simply the vision of Good and Evil contained within each of us, for which Keyes defines our soul as the sum of 3 distinct essences, Spiritus is the part destined for paradise, Manes for hell, and Umbra to wander for eternity on earth. The track begins with the three parts of the soul repeated with an icy voice in a dreamlike mantra guiding the track to the central part, where Keyes' harpsichord struts over Watkins' tribal rhythms, who fully takes possession of the scene in an exhausting solo, rotten and corrupt to the core... only to resume the initial litany at the end "Three parts to my soul, Spiritus, Manes et Umbra".

Surely the Dark is an overwhelming and totalizing presence in the small and weak human soul, so much so that it is Spiritus trying to find a bit of light and launches into a tribute to the Creator for the beauty filling the earth, "Summer For The Rose" is as hysterical in its advance as it is in search of redemption in the lyrics, even though the progressive ballad "Burn In Anger" immediately follows, where the weakness of the flesh decrees the surrender of Manus to the depths of the inferno, with a part that seems taken directly from the more reflective and "inspired" moments of Pink Floyd’s "The Wall"... 8 years earlier. "Too Well Satisfied" starts with another harpsichord-drum duel, until the arrival of the voice telling how in the end the "new Life" in the inferno is not much worse than that lived on earth, much reminiscent of the sermon of the Pink hierarchical figure in the already mentioned Waters and company's concept. And we have reached the end... "In A Token Of Despair" comprises just under 11 minutes of sublime beauty. The track opens with the sound of the wind sweeping the icy desert that is the human soul... the extreme solitude of the Umbra "I have been undead for just a year, I have felt the torment and the fear, And I yearn to know, I’m my shadow of a man, Who I now am", with a moving piano that takes hold of the track, leading it to a modern medieval age where Keyes' dry voice laments his deepest and... human obsessions.

Little is known about this trio, but perhaps it's better this way. Better not to delve into the Darkness, but to let the notes of this work tell us about it. "Burn - burn in anger, Burn - deny belief, Burn - burn in anger, Drink your sorrow, sup your grief"

Wonderful.