NEAR THE BEGINNING

Near the end of the psychedelic movement many bands recorded jams to show the individual skill of their members. Some bands chose to record studio jams (Love - da Capo; Captain Beefheart - Mirror Man (this was meant to be released on the second Beefheart record as a double record)), whereby others included live jams (Canned Heat - Livin' the Blues). Near the Beginning of Vanilla Fudge also has one side filled with a live recorded jam. Like al the albums named aboth this album got mixed responses by both critics and fans.

The first side of the record contains three songs in a same set-up as the previous "Renaissance" record. The opening track -"Shotgun" is one of the most intense recordings of the 60' with furious guitars, keys and bass lines. This heavy opener contains beside the songstructure some nice solo's of especially Tim Bogert on the bass. "Some Velvet Morning" has a doomy atmosphere with a great dynamical change from heavy to sweet rock as we also saw often on Renaissance. It ends with industrial sounds before going further with "Where is Happiness", which is another psychedelic hardrock effort. This first side of the record will please fans of the previous "Renaissance" record by having the same dynamic approach and quality.

"Break song" is the name of the sidefilling jam. While having a psychedelic hardrock theme this is a loose song which already changes to standard bluesrock within the first minutes. Vince Martell shows quiet impressive guitar handling however and therefor I don't mind the litle complexity of the accompany. Bluesrock as a genre always had great jams and has a better live reputation then the progressive rock genre. The bass solo is almost even more impresssing then the guitar solo. Tim Bogert shows many experimental bass effects which does please me al lot. It is not always nice sounding, but I enjoy the strange sounds because of it's strangeness. The key solo of Mark Stein is good but not as stunning as the earlier solo's. The drum solo is nice, but -as is the case with most drum solo's- gets a bit booring after several listenings.

In total this album is a quiet steady effort and almost as good as the "Renaissance" record. Just excellent psychedelic hardrock!

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