THE OLD MAN & THE SEA

Formed in Horsens, Denmark as far back as 1967, THE OLD MAN & THE SEA was one of those bands that played the live circuit for years and years with unstable lineups that resulted in a short breakup that ultimately found the band resurrecting from the ashes in 1971 which would be the cast of musicians that would record the band's first and only self-titled album that came out in 1972 on the Stockholm based Sonet label. However with only 500 copies pressed and pretty much zero publicity the band and the album remained somewhat of a footnote in Danish history until the revival of interest of all things progressive was reinvigorated in the 1990s when the band finally experienced several reissues coming out and in the 2000s a number of remastered versions had emerged as well.

Named after the Baltic Sea classic tale, this band exhibited a strong connection to the 1960s heavy bluesy psychedelic rock with in addition to the guitar, bass and drums featured raucous Hammond organ drive, moments of Tullish flute. In fact the band has most often been compared to both Jethro Tull and Atomic Rooster but lacked the creative songwriting prowess and energetic delivers that both that bands possessed. While considered a progressive rock band, the music often offers a more direct style of early 70s hard rock in the vein of Led Zeppelin or Deep Purple and the scant prog offerings make this sound more like a proto-prog band of the late 60s than what would be considered progressive in the peak of the genre's complexities in 1972.

THE OLD MAN & THE SEA's only album of its existence from 1967-75 featured seven tracks mostly in the typical hard rock range of playing time with only the closing track "Going Blind" extending past ten minutes. This track in particular makes the comparisons to Jethro Tull clear with Ole Wedel's vocals sounding a bit like Ian Anderson at times coupled with the flute runs. "The Mong Song" evokes Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love" in how it delivers its riffs and breakdowns. The band also sounds very much like a North American country folk rock band at times. The Canadian band simply called The Band comes to mind a lot when i'm listening to this although THE OLD MAN & THE SEA did throw in a few progressive moments that qualifies it as "barely prog." To my ears the tracks on this debut most likely dated back to the earliest years of the band and finally presented here at this late hour when the music scene had shifted.

The band had been smitten by the Yes bug and did up their prog game and even recorded a second album and was also shown interest by CBS records but the label wasn't interested in prog music so the album sat in the vaults until it was released as "Second" in 2013. Overall this is a fairly generic sounding album that doesn't really deliver the prog goods for a harder bluesy rock band should in the way acts like Captain Beyond or Lucifer's Friend did. It's a decent album and pleasant but i find it all to be a little too safe sounding without any attempts to actually "progress." Likewise i don't find Ole Wedel's vocals very compelling either as his vocal style sounds more suitable for a power pop band like Badfinger than it does for a dynamic harder edged band that seems to water down the effect. A good album emerging from 1970s Denmark but not the best the nation and to offer for sure.