Stop me if you've heard this one:
It could be any year.
1974, USA: Band records killer third album. Tapes get lost. Truncated album gets released to massive critical and popular acclaim. Label declares itself bankrupt. Album goes down with the label. Band disbands for legal reasons.
Another flickering flame extinguished (well, not quite) through misfortune and bad timing.
An achingly familiar story. This time of German band, Epitaph.
Amazingly, all these years later, up and coming German label MIG Music, itself a startup label formed by survivors of the SPV debacle, have remastered '
Outside The Law', adding three tracks from the "lost but now found" tapes, literally uncovered in Cliff Jackson's cellar. Plus four additional bonus tracks, taken from the band's legendary
'Live At The Brewery" recordings from 2000.
And what a cracking album this is.
Epitaph sound like they were born somewhere within hollerin' distance of the Mississippi delta.
The band's twin guitar sound and their four part harmonies vividly echo the deep south's favourite rock'n'roll sons, The Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd.
And that's only one facet of many impressions you get from
'Outside The Law'.
This band formed in 1970, rehearsing hard in the basements of German nightclubs, which only a decade earlier had been the haunt of the Fab Four, and you can hear it.
Yet, by 1974, the year the album was recorded, the airwaves were filled with the pervasive sound of progressive rock and embryonic heavy metal. Genesis, Yes,
Black Sabbath and
Uriah Heep were the names on everybody's lips.
That bleeds through too, adding rich colouring to
'Outside The Law', feeding into a patchwork of influences, all stitched together seamlessly, timelessly by the band, creating a novel and impressively individual sound.
Mainman, Cliff Jackson started life sounding like John Lennon's twin brother, playing guitar like George Harrison out of Duane Allman.
The songs, either written on his own or with bandmates Klaus Walz or Bernard Kolbe, are mini masterpieces of pop loving southern rock, burnished to a shiny metal finish.
The gutsy
'Woman' and the derivative
'Big City' encapsulate the whole ethos of
'Outside The Law' with the band drawing on the rock'n'roll past and present, seeing a future, as they begin to forge their own unique sound.
The real interest here though are the ones that got away.
Recovered from the "lost tapes",
'Train To The City' shows a smoother, more relaxed sound, with more of a reference to Britrock bands like Free than to metal or progrock.
With '
Wasted So Much Time' it's back to Dixie and
'Kind Of A Man' kind of indicates that they were big fans of C,S,N&Y.
On the live stuff the sound is so much heavier. And all the better for it. Crystal clear, the twin guitar sound is deft, collusive. Jackson's voice has deepened, matured, with a knowing, experienced tone that suits songs like
'Woman' and
'Big City' to a tee, drawing out meaning from the lyrics that wasn't evident the first time round.
A great package then, lovingly and painstakingly put together and it shows.
A piece of yesterday brought into the here and now.
Written by
Brian Wednesday, December 22, 2010
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