THREE PARTS TO MY SOUL

"Three Parts to my Soul" is the debut and sole full-length studio album by UK progressive rock act Dr. Z. The album was released in 1971 by Vertigo. The original version is a rare find (apparently only 80 copies were sold to the public while the rest were destroyed by the record company), but "Three Parts to my Soul" has been re-issued on CD several times and is more readily available in that form.

After listening to "Three Parts to my Soul" it´s quite obvious it´s a very unusual progressive rock album from the early seventies. First of all the vocals from Keith Keyes are pretty aggressive for the time (when they are most aggressive it sounds like Johnny Rotten joined the band) and his lyrics feature occult themes. Note the eerie whispering background singing in "Evil Woman's Manly Child". That sounds like evil incarnate if you ask me. Creepy stuff.

The music is centered around Keith Keyes demented vocals and his Hapsichord playing which I´ll come flat out and say I think are fantastic. Highly rythmic and quite unusual sounding. He also plays piano and organ. The rythm section is really great too. Just listen to the drums in "Spiritus, Manes et Umbra". Some pretty wild things going on in that track.

The musicians are very competent and I think the production and sound quality are very good. On the original album only featured 6 tracks but the version I own features two bonus tracks. The first bonus track "Lady Ladybird" is allright but nothing special while the second bonus track "People in the Street" really don´t work very well. The 6 original tracks are excellent though and I can highly recommend "Three Parts to my Soul" to fans of the darker side of early seventies progressive rock. 4 stars are well deserved.

(Originally posted on Metal Music Archives)