WHEN YOU'RE DEAD - ONE SECOND

This is one of those albums where the one mistake costs nearly the whole of the record to fall into the mildly entertaining/laughable category. That mistake is that former Velvet Fog guitarist Paul Eastment was a brilliant guitar player, but a truly awful and obnoxious singer. The progressive tinged folk tracks where Shirley Kent sings lead are excellent examples of post Fairport dark folky progressive, with the unrepresentatively upbeat "Hearts and Flowers" the best. The tracks that utilize harmonies are interesting if somewhat derivative, but with over half of the album handed over to Eastment everything becomes a joke. His guitar style might be called unique and brilliant, but his voice is the worst of Rob Halford, King Diamond, and David Coverdale all rammed down your throat. On "For One Second" he is particularly annoying, and the great music is ruined completely by screaming vocals at the end. "Night Of The Warlock" features more screaming quavering unintentional hilarity, and the band's attempt to market themselves as a folky Black Sabbath who actually did worship the devil is very unwise. Even with some good tracks on this album the self righteousness of the Jefferson Airplane comes into play too often along with a directionless brew of everything they could think of to be "offensive." Here is the biggest mistake. Why would a band want to make you believe they are horrible people? Who made them this angry? Even though I get even angrier and more depressed on a regular basis than this album I can't understand why anyone would purposefully make something hard to listen to. Some songs here are good, very good, but unfortunately the bad tracks are terrible. However, if you want to hear an interesting relic of early 70s occult folkrock get a reissue and see what you think. I find The Ghost to be "lost." When something goes right at least 3 things are bound to go wrong and those three things are (A) Paul Eastment is a horrible singer (B) A lack of direction (C) really, really pompous lyrics that are badly dated. If Shirley Kent had sung more tracks or if the majority of the album was like the great "My Castle Has Fallen" and "Too Late To Cry" this would be a rave write up, instead all I can say is this is alright for a few spins and then forget it. The organ sound and guitar sound are another mystery, why such an interesting instrumental approach has to be thrown out the window for bad vocals and lyrics is beyond me. This album isn't bad, but it's only a lukewarm good that isn't worth keeping.