COME TO THE SABBAT: THE ANTHOLOGY

This fine double CD collection offers the curious a cost effective but comprehensive overview of the career of this respected band. After a brief introduction through a couple of tracks by the band under their former guise Pesky Gee!, we find a good selection of tracks from the band's three album released between 1970 and 1972.

The first of these, "Sacrifice", is probably the fans favourite. For this album only, Black Widow aligned themselves with the occult and all things of the dark side. This resulted in such songs as the chanted anthem "Come to the sabbat" and the lengthy title track. Musically, while the songs are imaginative, without their controversial imagery they would have simply been decent if average early prog rock. The second album saw the gimmicks being dropped both on and off stage in favour of a more serious approach to the music. Unfortunately, this simply exposed the band's weaknesses in that department, and the album failed to make an impression.

"Black Widow 3", which bore a similarly unimaginative but at least accurate title was released a year later. Tracks such as the 11 minute suite "The battle" and the 9+ minute "old man" (the latter not included here) took the band back into more progressive territories and "King of hearts" was also well put together. As a result, the band saw limited success in continental Europe, but unfortunately not in sufficient numbers to persuade CBS to maintain the band's contract. As a result, the fourth album, a number of tracks from which are included here, was stillborn not seeing the light of day until the late 1990's. Four of the five tracks recorded for this rather brief album are included in this collection (only "The waves" is missing). The songs generally have a lighter feel with strong hints of the Yes sound. The two long tracks, "Sleighride" (which includes the melody from Prokofiev's "Sleigh bell ride") and "Part of a new day" are decent prog related numbers while the shorter tracks bring out the acoustic side of the band.

The compilation is rounded off by a good selection of rare tracks. Two of these are demos from sessions recorded after completing the fourth album. By this time, lead singer Kip Trevor had left, to be replaced by the mysteriously named Rick E. "Floating" features the dark heavy rhythms which characterised "Sacrifice", but without the controversial references.

Finally, we have the remaining tracks from the first album ("Sacrifice") not included on disc 1. These versions are of special interest though as they are original recordings with Kay Garrett on vocals. The tracks serve to show how much better these recordings were, who knows what success the band would have found had she not left when she did. An alternative version of "Come to the sabbat" from 1969 is also added, this rendition being even more jaunty and pop like. The album closes with a couple of unreleased tracks from 1971 intended for a solo album by original vocalist Kay Garrett. The instrumentation on these tracks is actually by Black Widow. "The devil's lair" harks back in terms of theme to the first album, the melody being gypsy like, indeed there is a passing similarity with Cher's "Gypsies tramps and thieves".

In all, a fine compilation which offers an excellent overview of the life of this now respected band. The set comes complete with a fold out booklet containing a host of images from the period plus a detailed analysis of the band's work.

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