*. Dark .* (Reissue)

Album: Artefacts From the Black Museum (1972)(Reissue 1996) +  Jam 1975 (2001)
Genre: Heavy Prog (Hard Rock/Psychedelic)  /  UK

As I’m sure we’ve all taken good notice of these past few years, there’s been loads of reissues of obscure 60’s and 70’s rock from the world over. Granted, a good deal of these reissues has been much needed, bringing some superb (and sadly forgotten) classics back to life. Unfortunately, we have to take the good with the bad. I question the motives behind a lot these reissues. I can imagine a group of guys digging in the vaults, grabbing stuff dusty discarded discs made in ’71 by a group of no-names from Nordlingen, Germany as a shot in the dark hope for making a quick buck off of perpetually curious listeners such as myself. The powers that be don’t actually listen to the stuff they choose to reissue; they just sort of figure, “Hey, these guys were probably on acid when they recorded this. It’ll sell well today at those freaky indie shops.” Plus, it’s just so much cooler to say that you listen to Dark as opposed to, say, The Nice, Jefferson Airplane or Pink Floyd, which is really all Dark is: just another clone of the bands who much better previous success with the same sound – success because, well, they were better. Speaking of Pink Floyd, I think it’s just terrible how often the snobbish folks brush off a masterwork like Piper At The Gates of Dawn simply because they associate Floyd with all of those ueber-boring mid 70’s dinosaur rock LPs. A real shame. If I had to judge this album by its cover alone, it would most definitely win all sorts of wacky prizes. They don’t make ‘em like they used to. Take the x-ray faust (German for fist) on the cover of Faust’s first and move it up to anonymous portrait’s face and you might get something like the hideous rictus on Dark’s Artefacts From The Black Museum. Look at that grimace of horror. I assumed that the music herein would have been lovely freak-out racket, or horrifying proto doom metal ala’ Sabbath’s first, which still manages to predate (tsk tsk, Dark). No. Instead I was inundated with a jam by numbers acid rock played by music shop wankers who spent too much time trying to copy the Airplane, Nice and Floyd and not enough time smoking grass. It’s bad. It’s sub-par. It’s boring. Every song follows the same pattern: some sort of weird sound, standard fuzz guitar, whiny vocals, windbag pentatonic/Eastern clichéd guitar solos, more vocals, some finale of sorts. Blah. There’s simply nothing appealing about it; no character, no fun, no great visions, no good steady grooves. Nothing. Nada. Nilch. Their vocalist has the bizarro Midas touch in that everything he graces with his abilities turns to shit. Even the three tracks with any sort of good steady rocking feels (I’m Not Sad, Maypole, Maypole #2) are completely laid to waste by his voice (or lack thereof) and very very stupid lyrics. Check out “I’m Not Sad”, where he tells the story of how he successfully begged his girlfriend to stay. It’s horribly pathetic. I guess I could say that the two guitar players try to save the band, but hey man, it’s a sinking ship. Hitler loved kids. So what? In closing, fellow reissue fan, you have been warned of Dark. If you like your acid rock formulaic, trite and meandering, you may want to hop on this like flies on shit. Otherwise, stay away. Far away. Most of these yucky reissues further cement classics like Black Sabbath’s first and Vincebus Eruptum. The name and title had such potential too. It’s a pity; a waste of such a cool cover. 

Review by "giallo" (www.headheritage.co.uk).

RATING:  7.75 / 10

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