6 October : High Tide

There has always been a lot of chatter about Black Sabbath and the birth of heavy metal, coupled with the notion that they came out of nowhere. I’ve commented previously that all this means is they didn’t play in London much and built an audience elsewhere.

But Sabbath weren’t unique; heavy rock was emerging all over the country like mushrooms in autumn. As well as Sabbath, I’ve previously mentioned Edgar Broughton, and amongst the others were High Tide, who released their debut album Sea Shanties in October 1969 and their second, High Tide in October 1970, shortly before they broke up.

I would have said I hadn’t previously heard anything by them, but as it turns out there’s a track of theirs on Son of Gutbucket which I have somewhere.

Sea Shanties is ferocious and, I think, much more anticipatory of recent heavy metal than Sabbath. Their twin leads are Tony Hill, guitar and vocals, and Simon House, violin and keyboards. Hill’s vocals remind me somewhat of Jim Morrison; House played with Hawkwind, the Third Ear Band, Bowie, and a long list of others.

It is one hell of a racket, bordering on thrash sometimes, with hints of the avant garde in Hill’s lead guitar. It definitely sounds of its time while sounding like nothing else I’ve heard from the time, if that makes sense. I like it.

I wasn’t so taken with High Tide at first; it’s somewhat more controlled than their debut, not quite so anarchic. I saw a contemporary interview with them in Melody Maker in which they said it was somewhat more folk-influenced, though I have no idea where they got that idea from. They also complained that they didn’t get paid as much as Edgar Broughton.

On my second time through, I found it more of a piece with their debut and enjoyed it a lot more. I was listening to a compilation and didn’t notice when the first album and ended and the second begun. It too is of its time, but I don’t hold that against it. It also points me towards an interest in the UK heavy music scene which, I suspect, was much more widespread than current muso. historians would have you believe.

Conclusion: a great band of their time, and odd enough still to be enjoyed if you’re of the same frame of mind as me, so much so that I just went to Discogs and got the compilation cd of the two albums.

I listened on Spotify. It’s on YouTube in installments, as far as I can see.