Balaklava - PEARLS BEFORE SWINE***

Trumpeter Landfrey/Translucent Carriages/Images Of April/There Was A Man/I Saw The World/Guardian Angels/ Suzanne/Lepers & Roses/Florence Nightingale/Ring Thing

Balaklava was the follow up album from the American psychedelic folk group Pearls Before Swine. Inspired by the Charge of The Light Brigade the album has a strong anti-war theme.

“This is superb psychedelic music, successfully merging exotic instruments like marimba, clavinet, French horn and swinehorn with Tom Rapp's unique lisping vocals. Balaklava isn't background music. It's indispensable to any serious '60s rock collection.”

“This is a good example of something from a specific musical era that holds up over time. Tom Rapp writes and sings with an unmistakable passion; songs like Translucent Carriages and There Was A Man are, quite simply, good songs, sung well, not just mouldy psychedelic-folk relics. This album comes from somewhere private and personal, yet sounds universal when you listen to it. A gem.”

“Tom Rapp's voice is that of old recordings, with its sudden changes from extreme quiet to extreme loud, nasality and melodramatic vibrato. The combination of this voice with drumless, airy instrumentation and fragile quasi-melodic background noise produces one of the most surprising experiences in 60s rock music. Balaklava is a highly original album.”

“If ever there was a band that I wanted to like, Pearls Before Swine would be the one. The band's blatant love for all that is bizarre compels me to keep coming back to them. But overall, these songs do not do the imagery justice.”

“Quite a brilliant little psychedelic folk album. This is apparently about the Vietnam War, and Tom Rapp does a great job of capturing the lyrics in a calm, psychedelic way. They're protest songs without being overtly stupid. This album offers great, atmospheric music, but with enough hooks to help out.”

“More jagged, but just as uneven as its predecessor; Balaklava has the guts to be ghostly. Translucent Carriages takes the potentially deadly move of tracking Rapp's whispered lines over his verses, but it's done with such care it's almost frightening. I Saw The World is fragile folk of the first order, filled with aural bric-a-brac.”