Atomic Rooster

Death Walks Behind You (Elektra ’70) Rating: B+
Formed from the ashes of The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown, Atomic Rooster are equally obscure these days if not more so, and equally unfairly at that. Fact is, Death Walks Behind You - generally considered far and away the band's best album - is something of a minor "forgotten" hard rock gem, not nearly in the same league as Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, or Led Zeppelin but definitely notable contenders thereafter, if only for a brief while. By the time of Death Walks Behind You, the band's second album, Paul Hammond had replaced Carl Palmer on drums and John DuCann joined the trio as singer/guitarist, while group leader Vincent Crane added his distinctive keyboards and most of the songwriting while conjuring bass sounds from his keyboards as well. The album gets off to a rip roaring start with the should've-been-classic title track, with its wonderfully ominous intro and rock solid riffs/groove thereafter, though perhaps it plods unnecessarily at times. Really, the band tends to plod in general on their more straightforward songs, such as "Tomorrow Night" and "I Can't Take No More" (both of which are growers, actually), and they're at their best during strong jam-heavy songs such as "Vug" (an instrumental), "Seven Streets," and "Sleeping For Years," where the band's unique chemistry, particularly DuCann and Crane's guitar-organ duels (a la Deep Purple), is at its most effective. This band can really groove when they up the tempo, enough so that their average songwriting and barely adequate vocals can be overlooked. Crane's keyboards are jazzier and more colorful than the soulful moody vibe he brought to Arthur Brown, DuCann packs some serious guitar heat (though again I wouldn't put him in the same league as Iommi, Blackmore, or Page), and Hammond holds his own when compared to Palmer. "Nobody Else" is the only ballad on the album, and a sad pretty one it is, though it too picks up steam for about a minute in the middle (great guitar solo), while the 8-minute instrumental "Gershatzer" is the album's most indulgent/meandering track (yep, that's the one with the organ/drum solo), no mean feat when you calculate the average length of each song (about five and a half minutes). Still, on most of these songs the band earns the right to stretch out, and their jam-based interplay is often genuinely interesting and exciting. Atomic Rooster had some obvious weaknesses and there are some definite lulls along the way, but the band stirred their own singular stew with their gothic overtones and progressive tendencies, and Death Walks Behind You certainly stands tall when held up against most other hard rock ("heavy metal" would be pushing it, though Crane's dark lyrics fit the part) albums from 1970. Alas, the band switched to a less heavy direction soon afterwards, and Crane and his rotating cast of musicians in Atomic Rooster remained also rans for the rest of their career. He later (strangely) joined Dexy's Midnight Runners before sadly committing suicide on Valentine's Day in 1989.

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