666

Actually 666 is a pretty controversial album looking at the reviews/ratings on here. In fact there are three categories of appreciation to be detected: the admirers giving the album 4 or 5 stars without reserve, the "loathers" hammering it down without hesitation and the critics who have their sincere doubts about the class of this historical piece of art but don't want to go that far to degrade it with a (very) low rating. Count me in with this third category I'd say.

I mean 666 is a progressive landmark in my opinion but on the other hand it contains many moments that are pretty hard to bear for many people like the long lasting copulation on second disc for instance. It has it's meaning and significance for the story of the album no doubt but I can imagine there are complete tribes on this earth who feel this shouldn't be on any serious recording. Okay, the late sixties and seventies was the era of sexual liberation but to utter this in such a flagrant way, hmmm...

It's only fair to say this feature on the album is just one of many aspects and there is much to digest on this doubler. Strange sounds of all kind, great music (Four Horsemen f.i.) and much more in fact making 666 at least an intriguing output. Not good enough by any means for the grade "excellent" in my opinion for therefore the positive impressive moments are a minority compared to the negative bizarre stuff. But at least 666 is original and important to the history of progressive rock. And for that reason all things considered it gets three stars from me (interesting and essential instead of good but non-essential in this case). By the way like several reviewers did before me I deliberately saved this album to become my review # 666 :)