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Rock for dinosaurs, pachydermic suites, jurassic music, these are just some of the definitions that might come to mind to disparage that typical taste of certain late psychedelic rock (more often of progressive rock) that was fashionable in the 70s, which saw the length of the songs stretch to cover entire sides, leading to consequential and irreversible epidemics of yawns among listeners.
But here we are still in 1969, the acid sun of California has not yet completely set, and behold, the twenty-five minutes of Who Do You Love (a Bo Diddley cover), reveal an incredible machine of good vibrations. It's impossible, at least for the writer, to get bored listening to the guitars of John Cipollina and Gary Duncan dueling by alternating ambushes, relays, roughness, and sinuosity, supported by the gallop of a rhythm that always finds the right time to keep up with the two, sometimes almost boogie, sometimes closer to jazz. A mercury snake that flows fast, then slower, hides and reemerges with always different aspects, never releasing from its coils those who unwittingly cross its path...
On the second side, the sabbath shifts to some sunny desert, and the tones seemingly settle in the sandy indolence of Mona (another Bo Diddley cover). In Maiden Of The Cancer Moon, the sun delivers its relentless slashes of light, and the cactus shadows are increasingly slender to find shelter; confirming that beneath the burn, the acidity remains exceedingly high, with the sinister flamenco of Calvary effectively inventing a plausible form of sunstroke psychedelia, before the final trick of the title track. A sound essentially based on a multifaceted, dry, and gnarly guitar style, that has excellently endured the weight of the years, unlike other examples of acid rock, if it's true that from the Quicksilver later decades saw influences on figures beyond any suspicion like Tom Verlaine of Television or others more easily suspected like Guy Kyser of Thin White Rope.
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