Oldish Psych and Prog

Very trendy track titles such as Distillation, Equivalence and Psychonebulous (all credited to H. Tical), as well as the lack of info on the sleeve, are more often than not a bad omen. This all-instrumental exploitation album, however, has some hidden surprises for us. The ridiculous liner-notes (mentioning life before birth, no less) notwithstanding, almost each and every track is a short heavy acid-rock symphony which make the title of the album ring true. Disturbing, subtly dissonant and even downright menacing, I wouldn't recommend to listen to this daily, but I would certainly recommend it in small doses. A good soundtrack to your worst expectations, this is an unclassifyable hybrid of orchestrated pop and trips gone awry. For the strong-souled among us.

The "Tical" monicker is thought to be a pseudonym and as the album and a 45 with two non album tracks were issued in Italy on the Spider label (distributed by Vedette), it's probable that this album was the work of an Italian artist.

(Marcel Koopman / Gianpaolo Banelli)