TO SAMUEL A SON

Well a few words for an ordinary 60's album.This album does not contain anything new for your ear its a simple 60's pop/psychedelia/proto-prog album.In general this work is feature for his heavy organ, with few good songs and with many ballads, nothing to remember for.Although we can not forget the members that take part here:Ken Hensley,Lee Kerslake[also John Glascock(JETHRO TULL,TOE FAT)] two musicians who later will be meet again in URIAH HEEP. This is the album that Ken Hensley start to show his talent in keyboards and his leading role in a band .I could only recommend this album at fans of URIAH HEEP

P.G You can hear many similaritys between this album and URIAH HEEP firts 2 albums

The Gods had a long and complicated history, beginning in Hatfield in the mid 1960s. At one point Greg Lake fronted them, and after his departure the group settled around the line up of Joe Konas, the late John Glascock, Lee Kerslake, and Ken Hensley around 1967. This line up as you may know would later become part of the hard hitting yet melodic group Uriah Heep. Hard hitting yet melodic sums up some of this wonderful album, but The Gods in a bid to go out with a bang and split up having achieved something of worth (their two albums prove that in spades- unfortunately I don't own Genesis yet, but I heard it some time ago) tried for one side devoted to a concept, the other to songs not linked to the concept. The concept side is quite impressive, with much mellotron, Hammond organ, soulful melodic vocal harmonies, and a great lead voice from Ken Hensley. Most impressive of Side One's nine tracks are the opening title track, "Sticking Wings On Flies" (you gotta hear this to believe it!), "He's Growing," and I'd say "Lady Lady." There's a lot of transitional 60s into 70s stuff here, the organ and guitar sounding like a precursor to what would happen only a year later when "progressive rock" was born. I don't consider any track on this record "progressive" instead opting for the term "art rock." You should realize that though linked together sometimes these are very different things. Art rock is more the Moody Blues/Beatles/Kaleidoscope/Koobas kind of proto serious "art" in a rock context and leaning towards the song based and thoughtful. So what is progressive? That's when the longer tracks and heavy classical/jazz influences and the underground vibe come in. The Gods then can be viewed as one of the greatest art rock bands and this one of the greatest soft psychedelic into art rock albums. There's not one thing I'd change about this record, I simply love it and think that they did a great job in pulling off some magic at the tail end of their career. Listen especially to "Momma I Need-" this track is mindblowing! The harmonies and music are first class, and the lyrics- deep and meaningful. If you like the best music of the 1960s and early 1970s you need to own this album, and this band. If you want to know what Uriah Heep started off as, buy it as well, but you may be a bit shocked as not much of this band's output is bludgeoningly heavy. For the time was it? Yes, some tracks definitely were, but it doesn't sound heavy next to Look At Yourself or Salisbury. If you can imagine the early Deep Purple jamming with The Moody Blues and a bit of Asgard/Argent in there, you get it. Anyways, a masterpiece and an album that has stood up brilliantly.

The second album of the group is more interesting for me. I felt development after the first one. I could enjoy 4 songs from this album. It's quite a good ratio in comparision with the "Genesis" album. The start of this record is great! The group can be proud of the title song: "To Samuel A Son" Other important movements are: "He's Growing", "Groozy" and "Five To Three". So I think it's really worth to listen to this album once, but Ken Hensley did his best to form the Spice and Uriah Heep. I think the Gods was a good begining for some famous musicians.

Surprising how few reviews the two albums by The GODS have received. This band is best known for its members who later became involved in famous bands: keyboardist-guitarist Ken Hensley and drummer Lee Kerslake in Uriah Heep, bassist John Glascock in Jethro Tull. [Also one Greg Lake played in the Gods, but so briefly that he's not featured on the recordings. Furthermore, original guitarists Mick Taylor and Brian Jones found greater fame with John Mayall's Bluesbreakers and Rolling Stones, respectively.] The fourth man in the recording lineup is Joe Konas (guitar, vocals). Heep's main writer Hensley is naturally the most active song writer here, but also the others are credited on several songs. 14 of them in total, and the fresh Esoteric Recordings edition has both sides of the single 'Maria' as bonus tracks. Yeah, the famous song from West Side Story musical! And it works really nice.

The debut "Genesis" (1968) was quite a modest organ-heavy psych pop album with lousy production, and this album is a clear improvement. Harmony vocals, good keyboard parts (as well as cheesy ones), accessible songs of psychedelic pop or proto-prog, and the conceptual feel that harmfully doesn't function very well til the end. At least the fans of Uriah Heep probably wish for something more edgy and powerful. Some songs (e.g. title track, 'Five to Three', 'Autumn') have a nice, shadowy atmosphere but some others are just boring and outdated.

Not a bad album in the late sixties psych/proto-prog field, but not an essential listening unless you give extra value to the historic side of it. In that case the Esoteric Recordings edition (2013) is recommended. Hensley tells in the liner notes that he can still listen to this without being embarrassed. His songs are genreally better than Konas's or Kerslake's, whose 'Lovely Anita' is irritatingly bad way to end the original album.