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Ellison
Ellison in Bloomington, MN
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The sole album recorded by Montreal band
Ellison
in 1971 for
Trans-World Records
certainly starts out promisingly enough. After some door-knocking sound effects, the opening cut,
"Unchanged World,"
charges into a gritty blues-rock groove with pulsating bass runs and some excellent guitar work. On top of that, vocalist
Vincent Marandola
does a pretty respectable impersonation of
Jim Morrison
's later-period-
Doors
, with a barrelhouse blues yodel (with vaguer hints of the
Felix Cavaliere
and countryman
John Kay
) and an earth-shaking, alcohol-soaked, gravelly shout. At least, this is the first impression. Unfortunately, their music is unable to sustain any sort of excitability past those first few seconds, and the album quickly devolves into prosaic hard rock that lacks any subtlety, imagination, or melodic sophistication. The band may want to capture the mystical sonic assault of
Crazy Horse
-- and they do fill their songs with chunky rhythm guitar, minor chording, and thick, dense drum beats -- but they rarely sound like anything other than a sloppy bar-band equivalent. By the middle of the second song,
"Seal a Beam Bow,"
-- which, incidentally, is built on a nice, jazzy barre-chord progression --
Marandola
's two-note vocal limitations become apparent and begin to grate in unpleasant ways. Even worse, the weaknesses of the songwriting start to show themselves much more nakedly. Although the band was certainly capable of picking out the occasional nifty chord, they were unable to translate that ability into developing melodies. None of the seven original songs on
could exactly be described as tuneful. Even if the band opens with a nice passage, the songs tend to inevitably descend into banal, early-'70s hard-rock cliches. Technically the band can play, but they simply do not have enough ideas for a single song, let alone an entire album. Amateurishness can conceivably be turned into an attribute, but instead of playing to their virtues,
tries too often to turn the occasional interesting guitar riff, bassline, or instrumental passage into a whole song, stretching it out until the piece is nothing other than repetitive and soporific. ~ Stanton Swihart
Ellison
in 1971 for
Trans-World Records
certainly starts out promisingly enough. After some door-knocking sound effects, the opening cut,
"Unchanged World,"
charges into a gritty blues-rock groove with pulsating bass runs and some excellent guitar work. On top of that, vocalist
Vincent Marandola
does a pretty respectable impersonation of
Jim Morrison
's later-period-
Doors
, with a barrelhouse blues yodel (with vaguer hints of the
Felix Cavaliere
and countryman
John Kay
) and an earth-shaking, alcohol-soaked, gravelly shout. At least, this is the first impression. Unfortunately, their music is unable to sustain any sort of excitability past those first few seconds, and the album quickly devolves into prosaic hard rock that lacks any subtlety, imagination, or melodic sophistication. The band may want to capture the mystical sonic assault of
Crazy Horse
-- and they do fill their songs with chunky rhythm guitar, minor chording, and thick, dense drum beats -- but they rarely sound like anything other than a sloppy bar-band equivalent. By the middle of the second song,
"Seal a Beam Bow,"
-- which, incidentally, is built on a nice, jazzy barre-chord progression --
Marandola
's two-note vocal limitations become apparent and begin to grate in unpleasant ways. Even worse, the weaknesses of the songwriting start to show themselves much more nakedly. Although the band was certainly capable of picking out the occasional nifty chord, they were unable to translate that ability into developing melodies. None of the seven original songs on
could exactly be described as tuneful. Even if the band opens with a nice passage, the songs tend to inevitably descend into banal, early-'70s hard-rock cliches. Technically the band can play, but they simply do not have enough ideas for a single song, let alone an entire album. Amateurishness can conceivably be turned into an attribute, but instead of playing to their virtues,
tries too often to turn the occasional interesting guitar riff, bassline, or instrumental passage into a whole song, stretching it out until the piece is nothing other than repetitive and soporific. ~ Stanton Swihart
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