Vincebus Eruptum – BLUE CHEER***

Summertime Blues/Rock Me Baby/Doctor Please/Out Of Focus/Parchment Farm/Second Time Around

San Francisco hard rock trio Blue Cheer are considered to be one of the earliest exponents of the heavy metal genre. Their debut LP Vincebus Eruptum includes their cover of Summertime Blues, a US No. 14 hit single. (US:11)

"Vincebus Eruptum, Blue Cheer’s landmark 1968 debut, is widely regarded as the ground zero of the heavy metal explosion. The album, includes the trio’s mindmelting reading of Eddie Cochran’s Summertime Blues, overdriven originals such as Doctor Please and Second Time Around plus distinctive re-workings of the blues standards Rock Me Baby and Parchment Farm.”

"Without a doubt, Blue Cheer's debut is one of those albums which strongly influenced the birth of heavy metal at the beginning of the 70s. The sound is pretty heavy for its time, offering us wicked psychedelic fuzz-guitar driven hard/blues rock, a few cover songs and a few awesome original numbers. There's no doubt that Vincebus Eruptum is one of the classics of its time."

"Chaotic, aggressive, sludgy, heavy, noisy and years ahead of it's time. The music is very blues based, but the grooves are aggressive and the guitars are transformed by fuzztone and overdrive into monster dinosaur riff makers. Pretty amazing considering this band predated Black Sabbath by two years. Though not nearly as dark as Sabbath, this album is arguably heavier and noisier."

"Blue Cheer were groundbreakers for the time. To me they are the first ever heavy metal band. When you put them up against the likes of Hendrix and Cream, there was no comparison. Their loud and nasty sound corrupted my musical tastes forever."

"Blue Cheer were crude, rude and always on the verge of collapsing or blowing up under their own volume. I don't remember ever thinking of them in comparison with Hendrix or Cream who were great players who created their own unique brand. Blue Cheer were working another angle: the most volume and distortion possible. They were not exploring new scales, guitar tones or intricate arrangements."