COME TO THE SABBAT: THE ANTHOLOGY

I feel that this is a great compilation from a band that should have been bigge than they were. Black Widow was one of the greatest prog-metal bands of the early 1970's. It's a shame that they dropped the Satanic imagery that made them popular in the beginning. "Sacrifice" is one of my favorite albums of all time. The next two albums were great but I wish that they had not given to their label and management. I feel that they could have given a lot of bands like Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath a run for the money had they had more support and weren't blacklisted from coming to America. It seems that a lot of "Satanic" bands did this schtick for one album, such as Coven and then dropped the imagery in favor of commercial success. Black Widow will always be just a footnote in rock history but will always be close to my heart.

From satanic rituals to Christmas sleigh rides

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.

Black Widow is always going to be associated with one song, which has given title to this double CD compilation which attempts to provide the definitive anthology of the band. Overall it has to be said that it works very well in that respect, apart from the fact that it doesn't list the original source of all of the songs, just the years, which is the one failing that I can find. The booklet folds out and there are plenty of photos and reprinted reviews and album covers etc as well as a history of the band. Musically it starts with two tracks from the band before they became Black Widow, when they were known as the slightly less threatening Perky Gee! (their exclamation mark, not mine). At this time they had a female lead vocalist in Kay Garrett, but she left during the recording sessions of the debut BW album, 'Sacrifice'.

Who knows what the band would have done if Pesky Gee! had been more successful as while the Uriah Heep-style hard rock and Clive Jones sax are easily recognisable her vocals give the band a different, more polished, edge. Track three is actually from 1999, taken from a Black Widow tribute album where the band is also credited with providing some new songs but were actually Kip Trevor backed by Pendragon (!). It is of course "Come To The Sabbat" and "Sacrifice" that are the songs that are probably best remembered now; although at the time a much bigger fuss was made over the fact that the band used to sacrifice a naked woman onstage after simulated sex with the lead singer! And critics say that Tatu are shocking!!

In fact there are two versions of "Come To The Sabbat" as well as the 'proper' version there is also the demo from 1969 which features Kay as well as two previously unreleased songs from her unreleased 1971 solo album. This album is easily the most complete attempt at providing a complete history of the band and although it is annoying that there aren't enough track details this is still an interesting release.

Originally appeared in Feedback #73, Jun 03