Groundhogs
Thank Christ For The Bomb

THE REVIEW

  Until a few years ago, when visiting London, among the posters of the hundreds of rock blues concerts that English pubs still insist on offering despite the overwhelming avalanche of crap that is drowning our beloved music, one could still notice the name of the Groundhogs. I imagine Tony McPhee, with his appearance like an old dockworker heading out for the evening in tight jeans and white sneakers, plugging the jack into his red Gibson for about forty people sitting in front of yet another pint of dark beer. 

 This gentleman in the sixties was one of the leading figures of British blues and admired John Lee Hooker so much that he borrowed the name of the group from one of his songs (the groundhog is a type of wild pig but is also used to mock an untrustworthy person) and even supported the great bluesman on his UK tour. Amid various breakups and odd jobs, the Groundhogs reformed as a trio in 1969, just when the British blues phenomenon was about to give way to a harder, more modern rock blues, and in response, they produced an album, "Blues Obituary," with a cover featuring "Reverend" Tony blessing a coffin held up by the two buddies, with the body of the blues ready for the funeral!

  But it is with the subsequent "Thank Christ for the Bomb" from 1970 that the Groundhogs reach the peak of their expressive creativity. A concept album as was customary at the time, but without the pretentiousness of many similar operations, in which war and its alienating consequences were condemned right from the cover that showed the three long-haired members dressed as unlikely, battered and limping soldiers. The producer is Martin Birch, who that same year had done great work with Deep Purple's "In Rock," and he, of course, gives the trio a harder approach than they were used to expressing until then.

 Let's get things straight: it's a great album that deserves much more recognition from rock enthusiasts, and you are one, aren't you?  McPhee's nasal voice and his masterful guitar playing provide a unique harmony and balance between the acoustic and electric parts.

 Among all, the beautiful, long title track "Thank Christ for the Bomb" starts acoustically with Tony's voice lamenting the war as if he were Bob Dylan, until it grows into an electric maelstrom that would make today's skilled "noise-makers" envious. Tony is a guitar hero and proves it in the Hendrix-style solo that dominates everything until the final explosion of the... bomb!

  Even westcoast echoes in the languid "Garden" with Pustelnik's nice work on the tom tom drums, the wonderful slide solos make the track slip among favorites in my journeys made without leaving home walls.

 Pete Cruickshank's bass scales open "Status People" with Tony's guitar that seems to come straight from the best tracks of "Tommy" by the Who, with the difference that his riffs are much more robust than Townshend's....yet another superb track! Furthermore "Rich Man Poor Man" is an energetic ballad that owes much to Daltrey & Co., but the guitar arpeggio and Tony's nasal singing give it something much closer to Jethro Tull, with the usual double tonic injection: exceptional track number four! The puffing "Eccentric Man" revives the four-four time of the blues drowned in majestic riffs supported by the relentless rhythm, then the usual piercing Gibson solo sets the guitar on fire forcing an assistant in the studio to wave a piece of paper to cool it, and consequently: unmissable track number five.

 Do I need to continue? No, discover the other treasures of the album for yourselves and if you happen to be in London and see the poster of a Groundhogs concert, slip into that pub without any hesitation and bring the number of spectators up to forty-one.

Holy crap, you owe it to them!