Vanilla Fudge – VANILLA FUDGE***

Ticket To Ride/People Get Ready/She’s Not There/Bang Bang/Illusions Of My Childhood Part 1/You Keep Me Hanging On/Illusions Of My Childhood Part 2/Take Me For A Little While/Illusions Of My Childhood Part 3/ Eleanor Rigby

Self titled debut album from New York hard rock group Vanilla Fudge. Album consists of slowed down versions of recent pop hits which some critics have likened to an early example of heavy metal. Contains the hit single You Keep Me Hanging On, No. 6 in the States and No. 18 in the UK. (US:6 UK:31)

"There's very little contrast within or between songs. It sounds like they're doing the same thing over and over with each cover tune; slow it down, play really loud, and sing in an almost messianic style. It got stale fast, and I was waiting for that needle to reach the lead-out groove so I could move on to something better."

"Vanilla Fudge's stock-in-trade was to take a piece of music, normally a cover, and slow it down to a very laconic, snail-like and excruciating pace. This characteristic was unique during the psychedelic era, but I think it was something of a flawed experiment."

"This could be one of the first examples of what, a few years hence, would become heavy metal. The easiest comparison would be a more psychedelic Led Zeppelin. Definitely worth a listen as a good representation of how heavy 1967 could be."

"Vanilla Fudge made their mark by covering not only songs from different genres, but by stretching out these rather short pop singles, creating full fledged psychedelic wonders. They achieved this by layering distorted guitars on top of an ambitious Hammond B organ, then they slowed down songs like Ticket To Ride and You Keep Me Hanging On to almost heartbeat level."

"The thing with the Fudge was that they s-l-o-w-e-d everything down, and put very exaggerated emphasis on everything in an attempt to create a sound that came as close as they could to sound like music did when you were very stoned."

"Vanilla Fudge are average at best. The organ gets annoying. The instrumental build-ups ditto. Once the songs get going though, they become much better."