#385 Tyrannosaurus Rex - Unicorn

I realized all these great albums I liked came out in 1969. What else came out then? A lot of shit, most of which I've heard. But not this! And I did like the later-name-shortened-band-name'd T-Rex's stuff.

Here things are still pretty folky, and pretty messy, in a ratio of amazing to annoying of roughly 3-to-2. Good, but not dominant, that ratio. Bolan's whiny whinny of a voice trills and swoons and vibratos wildly, sounding at times a bit ridiculous. And the actual musicianship is often sloppy, repetitive and indulgent. Evenings of Damask sounds like open mic night gone wrong, or maybe a the bad end of a Jet Ski Accident session.

But sometimes that messiness works - with the oohs and ahhs and noises and ulations rising euphoric with tribal, simpler-than-now pulse. See Nijinsky Hind in particular, it just really just works. And in other places, structure and discipline and melody coalesce impossible, making these really timeless pieces of folk beauty shimmer into place. As in the next two late game tracks, Pilgrim's Tale and The Misty Coast of Albany both, which lift the album to new levels on the way out. Another case for my track-position-role analysis that I keep putting off.

You can also hear the echoes of the songs to come here, with Chariots of Silk setting the blueprint for that balance of stomp and swoon and mess and spine that we would see on tracks like Cosmic Dancer. Which is fun.

Overall, if you have any interest in glam, you better have an interest in T Rex, and from there you ought to have an interest in this. It's a listen I'm really glad to have taken the time for, bridging styles and band eras and sounds in ways that give a little bit of the cosmic shiver 4/5

You might like this if: you like slightly freaky folk, don't mind ramshackle, rough-edges trippy indulgence, and have an interest in some of glam's buried foundations.