Non-Prog Album Reviews

Elf - Elf (1972)

Genres: Hard Rock, Boogie Rock, Blues Rock

Rating: 3.5/5

Hard rock is a staple of rock n’ roll, that much is recognized. From the progressive twiddling of Rush, to the more buttsy grooves of AC/DC, hard rock has cemented itself as a tour de force that doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon. Anyways, with all that said, it's a genre with a lot of start ups, and one such start up I was very surprised about was from the band Elf.

Now, I just had to hear this album no matter the quality because of its very goofy album cover. When I saw the genres on RYM, I knew what I probably was gonna get into, since a lot of hard rock mixed with boogie rock usually play on a bunch of boomer and gen X radio stations throughout America, but I still wanted to give it a shot because the album cover depicting a scrunched up little elf man was too good to pass up.

The music itself I think is just ok. Nothing too crazy. If you ever heard bands like Canned Heat or UFO then Elf’s music is kind of like that. Very bluesy hard rock songs with some boogie elements in between. The song lyrics are also kind of what you expect, with lyrics of manly men trying to hook up with ladies, or doing other manly stuff. Since I am not a manly man, and I am not really someone who gets the ladies (I am a prog rock fan, need I say less?), these lyrics don’t really appeal to me personally. In fact I’d say they’re the weakest element from the record. They’re not atrocious, but I think they're just too standard for them to be interesting. Even around in the early 70s, songs with this amount of masculine vibrato have been around for decades, so honestly even if I was born in the 50s or so I’d probably find the lyrics here to still be boring.

However, honestly the music isn’t the most interesting thing about this record. That actually has to go to the stellar vocals on it. While the lyrics aren’t the best, I think the singer does a great job at making them a bit more tolerable. Who’s that singer? Well, surprisingly, it's Ronnie James Dio! That’s right, before he was the main vocalist for Rainbow and his own eponymous band DIO, Ronnie was in this little known boogie rock group, singing songs like Hoochie Koochie Lady before he was making his Holy Divers or Stargazers.

Honestly, Dio’s vocals are iconic for a reason, and hearing him sing on here is a treat. I think he even had some hand with one of the tracks, because Never More, my personal favorite off this album, oozes a lot of charms that Dio would carry in his future musical ventures. More mystical sounding rhythm and grooves that go throughout the track, with Dio singing about Hell and holy fire...it's like a prototype of what Ronnie would be best known for in his songwriting.

So, while Elf may be just a really fine hard rock group, the fact they gave a start to such a legendary figure in rock n’ roll history makes them a bit more appreciated. Sure, you might not get the same music out of this band as you would with Rainbow, but not every start is gonna be a big break right off the bat. Look at some legendary singers like Björk. Björk’s first album that was released in 1977 did very badly, and only is known about now because she became an alternative pop icon within the 90s. Sometimes you gotta start small before going big, not everything is gonna be lightning in a bottle.

Best track: Never More

Worst track: N/A