H.P. Lovecraft
H.P. Lovecraft II

Immediately, I was caught in a dilemma when, driven by enthusiasm, I didn't know which of the two H.P. Lovecraft LPs I would like to honor in Debaser's "bovine stall." Don't hold the zoological metaphor against me; more or less, we've all been tempted at least once to "ruminate" our antipathy towards the neighbor at the "manger," risking being thrown out into the "green fields" to graze on "nettles" with the herd, only to reincarnate as the "bovine" with a new name, end parenthesis.

After considerable uncertainty, the choice fell on their second work, but only for a small difference: the debut album, compared to the second, also stands with the contribution of two pillars of the American singer-songwriter tradition, Randy Newman with "I've Been Wrong Before" and Fred Neil with "That's the Bag I'm in" and "Country Boy & Bleeker Street," along with the hippie anthem "Get Together" by Dino Valente, which in the H.P. Lovecraft version, acquire a new identity, besides the fact that the album remains more closely tied to the formative style of Chicago's R&B-soul-jazz. In "H.P. Lovecraft II," however, created a year later in 1968 in San Francisco, it's evident what the atmosphere was like under California's blue sky, between sudden gusts of "acid rain" and "West Coast breezes", interspersed with climatic moods coming from the gray and smoky metropolis of the Great Lakes. The H.P.L. reached the peak of their brief career with this second and final effort, not through a true stylistic evolution, but by expanding the creative capacities already previously expressed in the profusion of the psychedelic dimension of late '60s rock music, still very much in vogue in America.

H.P. Lovecraft, the name comes from the famous American writer Howard Phillips Lovecraft, whom they were inspired by, formed in 1967 in Chicago. The line-up consisted of former folksinger George Edwards (vocals, acoustic-electric guitar) and Dave Michaels (vocals, organ, piano, harpsichord, clarinet, recorder). Tony Cavallari (vocals, lead guitar), Mike Tegza (drums, percussion), Tom Skidmore (bass) soon joined and left the group being replaced by Gerry McGeorge (vocals, bass), former guitarist of the Shadows of Knight, and eventually, due to his departure, the talented Jerry Boyan (vocals, bass) took his place for good. The genre is structured from a rhythm-folk with a strong soul influence, due to the attitude of its two excellent lead singers, , immersed in psych effects with magnificent consequences. Nine splendid tracks permeated by profound lyricism, in which the olfactory essences of all American musical culture nestle, are ennobled by dark harmonic constructs carved by the vital and technically impeccable singing of the two leaders, who inton melodies hovering with black-gospel moods. Nine splendid tracks, where it is impossible to find weak points, make this album an absolute masterpiece, one of the highest paradigms, among the most sublime of American psychedelia.

The confirmation comes immediately from the opening track, the touching "Spin, Spin, Spin," a "manifesto" that introduces us to the emotional world of H.P. Lovecraft, and "It's About Time," an R&B that flows into psych rambles over a gentle organ backdrop, are two compositions by Edward's friend, Terry Callier. The melodic "Blue Jack of Diamonds," announced by the tolls of an authentic 19th-century bell, is a melancholic song with funereal traits in harmony with the fanciful themes of the Providence writer. "Electrollentando" is a twilight mantra, a kind of foggy dream, emerged from unconscious depths through hallucinogenic suggestions. "At the Mountains of Madness" is a transposition of the eponymous tale by the "illuminating" writer, a mournful song lost in a collage of mixed-up sounds that thickens a space inhabited by strange and unsettling figures. The waltz of "Mobius Trip" is the dreamy cradle for a cybernetic journey. "High Flying Bird" follows in the footsteps of Kaleidoscope's "A Beacon from Mars." And the 39 haunting seconds of "Nothing Boy" raise the tension vertiginously, only to ease into the final track "Keeper of the Keys," a march celebrated with tenor-like zeal, closing the circle with reverberating echoes. H.P. Lovecraft disbanded at the beginning of 1969, leaving a small hidden treasure to posterity among the drift of time. Some assert that only those who withstand the scrutiny of history count. Well, what does all this matter to us when, in the sieve of our illusions, we find the gleams of a gratifying mirage trapped?