The stars and stripes hard rock of the late sixties... and who remembers it? As we're busy glorifying the deeds of the countless bands from Albion that will rule the hard rock music world, in the end, we realize that we narrow down the circle of those from across the ocean to the usual four or five names, the Amboy Dukes, the Blue Cheer, the Moving Sidewalks, the MC5...
The Litter is among them, but unfortunately, they have been unforgivably forgotten. Starting from Minneapolis as a beat group influenced by British bands like Who and Yardbirds, they released a great record in 1967, "Distorsions," which stood out for its innovative hard attitude in interpreting English classics and ended with a fierce version of "I'm a Man" drowned in an orgy of feedback. Later, like other groups of that late-decade period, the Litter moved towards an even tougher approach with a new lead guitarist (Ray Melina) and a new singer (Mark Gallagher) more suited to heavy sounds, and in 1969 they produced their third album.
"Emerge" is a great hard rock album unjustly underrated, the Litter doesn't do like other US bands of the time that expand the sound towards psychedelic tones but go straight to the point with incisive pieces of such quality that they make you regret their three-minute duration.
The opening with "Journeys" may still be anchored to certain things of the recent past (tell me if it doesn't remind you of the Other Half, another forgotten band of the era), but the arrogance with which the five tackle the matter leaves no doubt about the rest of the album. And so, real hard gems like "Feelings", "Blue Ice", "Little Red Book" (stunning!) highlight the original work of the two guitarists and Gallagher's clear and powerful Jack Bruce-style voice, characterized by an expression loaded with violence never pointless. In the "slow" tracks, the group unveils gems that give you chills: "Breakfast at Gardenson's" is pure candy floss just for our ears from Melina's fuzz guitar, "Silly People" is incredibly suspended between blues and jazz, complete with vocalese doubling the guitar!
It's worth stopping on the two longer episodes. One is the closing "Future of the Past" with a foreshadowing title of the step forward towards 70s hard-blues sounds typically English based on longer songs (a good twelve minutes) with a long drum solo by Tom Murray. The other is the cover of "For What It's Worth" by Stephen Stills, its progression is the classic west coast style but, every time the chorus kicks into high gear, the voice scratches and the guitars bite, leaving a thousand marks on our face but who doesn't like a bit of pain while having fun? And there's so much pleasure here, folks...
Do you perhaps think it's a record too old for making love? Remember that in rock, age differences do not exist.
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