Way back in the early 1970s when I was a youngster, I recall being given a random birthday present of a compilation album. I had no idea about music being at the time probably twelve years old or so.
I can’t recall what the compilation album was or which artists appeared on it – other than it had a cream coloured cover. However, one song from it has stuck with me over the years since. That being Song to Comus by Comus. Such a strange song, I thought as the young whipper-snapper I was at the time.
I’d pretty much forgotten about it until recently when their debut album from 1971 – First Utterance – popped up in my Amazon feed. It immediately took me back to that compilation album. Thus, I ordered the remastered CD with the bonus tracks.
Flippin’ eck (as we say in Yorkshire) – this is not an album for the feint hearted or if you have a nervous disposition. That said, it’s brilliant.
How to slot it in to a musical pigeonhole is not easy. Extreme folk, extreme prog, gothic, trippy, hypnotic, psychedelic, unconventionally heavy, intense. Scarily unsettling and frightening even.
And be prepared for some very dark subjects lyrically delivered in compelling yet bordering on unhinged vocals at times.
Diana starts things off being a sort of trippy folk style with all sorts bubbling along creating the atmosphere including the hard acoustic guitar and violin where you might usually expect a guitar. It all whips up in to some crescendo. To paraphrase a popular science fiction program of the time: It’s folk Jim, but not as we know it.
The Herald is a dozen minutes of extreme progressive folk with all sorts of acoustics, flute and woodwinds and more violin bringing up a pastoral country feel and Bobbie Watson’s vocal adds to that sort of atmosphere.
Drip Drip is where things get scary. It’s brooding and menacing throughout building in to a frantic conclusion.
The the one which I go back to from all those years ago – Song to Comus. The weird acoustics pushing up the tension, vocal variations from Roger Wootton range from the quiet to the unsettling screaming, the music whipping up the tension in to a frenzy. A more scary song than Drip Drip. Have a listen:
The Bite relieves the tension a bit then Bitten does too to some extent before The Prisoner goes back to the extreme folky psych style building up to another frenzied crescendo.
With First Utterance, Comus had an album like no other. A mixture of Jethro Tull, King Crimson, Van der Graaf Generator and early Black Sabbath.
Opeth’s Mikael Akerfeldt cites Comus as an influence even naming their album My Arms Your Hearse from the lyrics to Drip Drip.
First Utterance is so different yet such a compelling listen. Though don’t listen just before bedtime……unless you like your nightmares.
CD/streaming/digital versions on Amazon. Other outlets available of course.
>> COMUS FIRST UTTERANCE ON AMAZON <<
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