Orion's Beethoven
Superangel
Orions Beethoven, loosely described as a "symphonic psychedelic group", primarily, it seems, because of the way that they worked classical music themes into a jagged psychedelic wah-wah guitar shaped world of their own making. Here we have a reissue of their debut album (1973), which starts out with a riff that sounds like a schizoid version of the Get Smart theme music, and goes on from there into weird reaches of flanged vocals, hard-edged guitar solos. The second track, a thirteen minute suite, is driven by guitar - first acoustic, then a wiry-wounding electric. Track three is stranger still - echo effects, flanged drums sounding like an outer-spatial blues band jam. We're sure those "classical music" themes are there somewhere in track four, but there's no sense of "precious" about this band. The live bonus track is brief - a portion of the suite (track two) from the album - and apparently a rare document of the band on stage.