EAST OF EDEN

"East of Eden" is the eponymously titled third full-length studio album by UK, Bristol based rock act East of Eden. The album was released through Harvest Records in June 1971. It´s the successor to "Snafu" from February 1970, although the two full-length studio albums are bridged by the band´s most successful release, which was the 1970 Jig-A-Jig single (a non-album single track). Major lineup changes had again taken place between album releases (which happened throughout the career of East of Eden) and only Dave Arbus (violin, saxophone, flute) remains from the lineup who recorded "Snafu". New in the lineup are Jim Roche (guitar), David Jack (bass, vocals, acoustic guitar), and Jeff Allen (drums, percussion).

Stylistically "East of Eden" is also a completely different beast to the first two albums by the band (which were also both pretty different from each other). If "Snafu" saw East of Eden experiment to the fullest of their potential creating a hybrid jazz/rock, psychedelic rock, avant-garde rock release, this third album sees the band scaling back on the experimental ideas, stripping down their sound to a vers/chorus based vocal dominated rock style with folk/blues rock leanings. If you didn´t know it you would never have guessed it´s the same band playing here, but then again...with all the lineup changes it can be argued that it really isn´t. The occasional flute, violin, or saxophone part pops up and that´s when you recognise that it´s East of Eden playing, but other than that this is so different from what came before, that this could just as easily have been a completely different band playing.

When the band finally lets rip and leave the vers/chorus vocal comfort zone of their music it´s still audible that they are great musicians and there are some pretty great instrumental parts featured on this album. The vocal sections of the music aren´t band either, but if you come to this album expecting anything like the first two albums you´ll come away disappointed. "East of Eden" is a well produced album featuring a powerful, organic, and detailed sound production, which suits the material well, so upon conclusion this is a good quality rock release out of context. But put into the context that it´s a follow-up release to "Snafu" it´s a bit of an oddity. A 3 star (60%) rating is warranted.