THE WEED TREE

This cover album came out halfway between Esper's two albums, partly to soothe the fans' impatience. Already by this time Espers had grown to the sextet that will record the superb II album, and although a cover album, it is fairly representative of the group's sound. The album came with a fluo orange colour and a fluo yellow inside cover, sporting a simplified paisley artwork.

Starting out on the trad folk Rosemary Lane, and a bit later Black Is The Colour, the album starts out smoothly in a mellow tone. Weirder is the Nico cover of Afraid, version that lost all of the usual macabre ambiance of the German singer. One of the more engaged (energy-wise) tracks on this album is Blue Mountain, which is the closest they come to their original albums. Another surprising treatment is Blue Oyster Cult's Flaming Telepaths, and the least we can say that Espers dared to strip this rock piece to its bare bones. Quite a change, even if the progheads had wished for a not-so-wise rendition in the song proper, it does get there but only during the lengthy song finale of the track where electric guitars make an appearance. Very cool track, indeed and making honour to BOC. The only original Espers track is Dead King (which will have an answer on the next album with Dead Queen), and it gives a good foretaste of their next album. Not quite essential as their two studio albums, The Weed Tree is still quite a treat in its own genre, but clearly the second half of the album is really worth it.