BREATHE AWHILE

One of the many flash in the pan acts that existed in the freewheelin' late 1960s, ARCADIUM was a mere blip on the London scene but managed to drop this sole album BREATHE AWHILE in 1969 before disbanding a year later. The band was led by Miguel Sergides (12-string guitar, vocals) and was joined by John Albert Parker (drums), Graham Best (bass, vocals), Allen Ellwood (organ, vocals) and Robert Ellwood (lead guitars, vocals). The band frequented enough small clubs to catch the attention of the newbie Middle Earth label. The album was a complete commercial failure notable for its bad production and substandard vocals but nevertheless with the prog revival in the 21st century BREATHE AWHILE has become a cult hit after a much needed remastering job warranted a reevaluation of its merits.

Typical of the styles from the 1969-1970 odometer change, ARCADIUM's sole effort featured a sound that found that late 60s psychedelic rock sound slowly morphing into 70s progressive rock. This proto-prog album featured an ominous display of bombastic organ heft accompanied by heavy acid guitar, sharp vocal harmonies and moments of heavy psych freneticism sounding like a mix of The Doors, Vanilla Fudge, The Beatles and a host of other period acts but more anguished and nihilistic prognosticating the downer 70s hangover following the sunshine pop giddiness of the late 60s. The album is equally divided into lush acoustic guitar driven psychedelia, keyboard-drenched heavy psych and guitar-saturated hard rock complete with Yardbirds level soloing.

Bookmarked by the lengthiest compositions, BREATHE AWHILE begins with the near 12-minute "I'm On My Way" and closes with the 10-minute plus "Birth, Life and Death" which showcase the band's propensity to climb the progressive rock ladder and had they stuck around for a sophomore album surely would've become one of the more progressive bands of the early 70s. While the tracks in between the two biggies are shorter in length, they exude the same sense of doom and gloom and feature some of the heaviest guitar work on the album with more traditional sounding song structures. Despite being called a nightmarish concoction of late 60s atmosphere, BREATHE AWHILE is actually quite melodic and uplifting more in line with the psychedelic pop / rock bands of that came before as ARCADIUM was clearly more rooted in the past at this point than the future.

The main complaints i have encountered regarding this album revolve around the horrendous production job that graced the original vinyl that remained completely obscure until the modern era however i personally have never heard that one so i can only judge by my 2003 Akarma Records remastered CD which sounds perfectly acceptable without totally extinguishing that DIY garage rock effect. By far the weakest aspect of this album would certainly have to be the nonchalant laid back singing style of Miguel Sergides particularly in the high energy sections which did indeed require a bit more oomf in the vocal performances. Despite this though this album has come to grow on me after numerous encounters and ultimately has won me over with its strong songwriting and catchy ear worm hooks. The first two tracks are the strongest and initially much of the middle left me feeling unsatisfied but ultimately the album has worked its way in enough to understand why this album has become more regarded as a lost classic. The closer is another strong point that sort of recallibrates the strongest aspects. Not bad!