DILLINGER

In the early/mid '70's, there was on one side of the Maple Leaf, the hard rock scene in Toronto, Ont. throwing out bands like Rush, Triumph, A Foot In Coldwater, Moxy, Thundermug and on the flip side, prog and folk was blowing strong in Montreal, P.Q. with Maneige, Harmonium, Sloche propelling the movement. Yet another contrast in the differences between two cultural, lingual and political environments at that time in Canada.

Brothers, Jacques and Robert Harrison left the province of Quebec and moved to Toronto and formed Dillinger in 1973, named after the infamous Indiana bank robber, John Dillinger. Torontonians, guitarist Paul Cockburn and drummer Terry Bramhall were recruited and the Harrison's brought their proggy influences from Quebec with Jacques' multi-instrumental talents on the flute, sax, Moog, organ as well as taking on the lead vocals and handling most of the song writing with his brother, Robert on percussions. The band was signed to the small independent Canadian label, Daffodil Records and their self-titled debut was released in 1974. The organ and guitars drive the basis of the music with melodic and harmony vocals shifting between a bluesy hard rock and complex jazzy progressive passages provided by the flute, sax and the keys of Jacques Harrison.

The album opens up with, "People", probably the best track on the album with a honking saxophone, howling guitars and a punchy organ with powerful vocals. A growling guitar solo is followed by a Focus-like flute instrumental interplay with a hammering keyboard line. The first half of "City Man" is more in the realm of Deep Purple Mk. II but then abruptly and somewhat awkwardly takes on a jazzy groove foundation with a searing sax solo. The band's cover of "Nature's Way" from the psychedelic classic, 'Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus' by Spirit is excellent. The tempo is slowed down compared to the original but the addition of a trumpet/trombone (I'm not sure which as I don't have a Ph.D. in musicology) would of have been something that Spirit well might of incorporated as they on occasion would implement horns on some of their jazz-rock tracks. The addition of the female background/harmony vocalists adds a surgary semblance but isn't too sunshine bright. The 17+ minute epic, "Live And Return" starts out very jazzy with Jacques Harrison's lead vocals supported again by the background harmony vocalists may well be over-done/bearing. The majority of the song is an instrumental progressive jazz/blues/hard rock jam (Vanilla Fudge/Iron Butterfly/ELP/Santana fusion) and around the 11:30 minute mark, unexpectedly and somewhat dischording, a drum solo enters into the fray and travels for almost four minutes reminescent of ELP/Carl Palmer's, "Tank" spotlight. A wild but long-winded "suite".

On their next album, "Don't Lie To The Band", released in 1976 and with the help of Rush producer, Terry Brown, the band tightened up their sound and style to more of a hard rock direction though still slanted with progressive passages with some of the tracks in the 8 - 9 minute range allowed the members, most notably Jacques Harrison to showcase his talents. In 1977 the band had some personnel changes and went under the name of 'The Hunt' and released their self-titled debut. A fantastic hard rock album but the prog tendencies were almost nonexistent.

Share this DILLINGER review

Social review comments () BETA

---

---

Review related links

• Send comments to cannon
• Report this review (#586372)
• Buy DILLINGER music online with PA partners
• Show all DILLINGER MP3/Stream
• Go to DILLINGER page for videos, full discography with ratings, reviews and much more
• Go to Dillinger page for more details, where to buy and ratings/reviews
• Search the Forum for DILLINGER related discussions