BREATHE AWHILE

Another excellent reissue from Repertoire Records, Arcadium's 'Breathe Awhile' is one of the few albums that truly deserves the 'lost classic' tag bestowed upon so many underachieving progressive-and-psychedelic rock releases from the 1960's and 1970's. Now a highly-prized collectors item - both on CD and even more so on vinyl - 'Breathe Awhile' is a genuinely innovative mixture of lysergic psych-rock, skilful prog and intricate, bluesy Vanilla Fudge-style hard rock that resonates with a wonderfully tripped-out intensity that reminds one of the scarred cerebral landscapes of a particularly memorable bad-trip. Led by the enigmatic multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and composer Miguel Sergides, Arcadium unleashed 'Breathe Awhile' upon an unsuspecting world in 1969. Evidently, the music-buying public weren't quite ready for Sergide's brand of uncompromising acid-rock, even in the era of LSD and Timothy Leary, and the album proved a commercial failure that consigned the group to the decade-straddling netherworld of rock obscurity. And it's a real shame. 'Breathe Awhile' is a bravura creation, a highly-conceptual collection of songs exploring pathos, shame and adultery with utter conviction, displaying Sergide's penchant for darkly-wrought lyrical poetry and an intense, almost hallucinatory musical style quite unlike any other group of the time. Most of the tracks on offer feature a fast, bruising pace with screeching guitars, wailing lyrics, quicksilver drumming and discordant keyboards, creating a hysterical yet utterly-controlled brew of scorched epics. 'Woman Of A Thousand Years', 'Change Me' and 'It Takes A Woman' are particularly impressive, though the rest of the album is also highly recommended. Trying to find a comparison is difficult, as Arcadium sport a highly-refined sound that is completely their own, but elements of Iron Butterfly, Rare Bird, 21st century San Francisco psych-rockers Wooden Shjips and King Crimson are apparent. Thoroughly exhilarating, 'Breath Awhile' is a a brutal tour-de-force of an album that should please those in love with the freakier side of psychedelic madness. STEFAN TURNER, LONDON, 2010