Friday 9 February 2018

Pavlov's Dog - Pampered Menial (1975)


The debut album from this US band.

Pavlov's Dog was a seven piece big band with a lineup of mellotron, guitars, drums, bass, violin, vitar, viola, percussion, keyboards, flute and vocals.

Both this band and this album is regarded as classics in the prog rock scene and I was really looking forward to listen to it and review it. I am also going to review three other albums from this band/you will find three other reviews of their albums somewhere else in this blog.

David Surkamp's vocals came as a bit of a shock. Then again, Rush is my alltime favourite band and David's vocals is in the vein of Geddy Lee. No problems.
The album was produced by the Blue Oyster Cult producer Sandy Pearlman. 

The music here on this half an hour long album does indeed have some Rush and Blue Oyster Cult influences. It also has some ELO and Led Zeppelin influences. Kansas is another band I would say the music is influenced by.

It is though difficult to describe the music and sound here. There is a lot of things going on here. From the ballad Julia who starts the album and the ball. Even that ballad is pretty complex. And the album continues down the same road with complex and multi-layered music.

This is indeed one of the most remarkable US prog rock albums from the 1970s. It is also an album that age better with every time you listen to it.

Best of all; it is also a very good album who lives up to it's reputation. Check out this album.

3.5 points

 

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