BLUE CHEER - VINCEBUS ERUPTUM

So exactly what the difference between 'the birth of heavy metal' and a dull and elongated electric blues jam is I do not know. 'Vincebus Eruptum' is cited by some as the starting point of all things metal, a pre-cursor to Sabbath a slow distorion-laden exercise forming the 'A for apple' at the start of the heavy metal alphabet. So why does it sound so much like 'boogie woogie'?

Okay so there's nothing massively wrong with it but the promise that the sleeve seems filled with just isn't there. I owned this album once previously buying it, I think on a trip to the US years and years ago. I didn't really like it then so quite what prompted me to rethink my Swiss inspired strategy of non-commitment to this particular record I don't know. Is it the sleeve? I mean it really is a killer sleeve. For those of you unfamiliar with it, not only is it a goregeous screen print but it comes on a texturized card stock so that the writing is debossed. Oooooooh. If you catch it in the light it has this goregeous dull metallic sheen that has a live of it's own.

Unfortunately the music is instantly forgettable, so much so that I can't really recall it well enough to recount. All I can say is that two things came to mind whilst pottering around my flat with this cranked up.

1.) 'This sounds a lot like Status Quo'

2.) 'This is not as good as Slade'

Neither of these thoughts are the kind of thing you really want to materialize in review form if you are Blue Cheer. If you are not Blue Cheer they are the awesome release poster sound bites that you can only dream of...

Blue Cheer 'Vincebus Eruptum' - Not as good as Slade - 32rpm

This record really is massively dull, which is a shame as their 1971 album 'Oh, Something, Something' is great and I will get around to reviewing it at some point in the future if only to balance the Blue Cheer books.

In other news, I have a cold, a cold or something. I am tired and wish I was in bed, even though I know I am going to be kept awake all night thanks to Germany's fondness for celebrating absofuckinglutely anything and everything, for tonight is St Patricks Day.... Night. Really the fact that they will all be turned out in Shamrocks and Guinness hats should come as no surprise given that they took an entire week to celebrate the RIO Carnival less than a month ago, fucking idiots.

Still I suppose anything to distract them from the reality of their situation: They have a chancellor with the worst haircut in politics, the national dish is a hotdog without the bread roll and although this may well be specific to Bavaria, there is the out-line of an Iron Eagle on the side of Burger King.