Groundhogs - Split [Remastered] (1971)

Year: March 1971 (CD 2003)
Label: Liberty (UK & Europe), 07243 584819 2 1
Style: Rock, Blues Rock
Country: England
Time: 64:39
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 400 Mb

Unlike other contemporary bands, economy of notes was not part of the Groundhogs agenda. On Split, more than any other Groundhogs album, they played in a shamanic whirling that shattered and scattered the beat around in several directions at once. The frenzied drumming of Ken Pustelnik reduced the kit to the role of moronic streetgang defenseless against one lone Kung Fu hero. Stun-guitars wah-wah’d and ricochet’d at random against concrete walls, leaving passers by mortally wounded but deliriously happy. Even Pete Cruickshank’s bass, that one remaining anchor, was no anchor at all, but a freebass undermining the entire structure. As McPhee explained in a Zigzag interview of the time: “[Ken] just wallops everything in sight and sometimes I lose him completely. Like I often come back in during a solo and can’t work out where he is — so I just have to play a note and let it feed back until I can find my way back in. And Pete doesn’t help either, because he’s all over the place and he follows me rather than Ken … so when we fall apart, we really fall apart.”
The brutal honesty of this quote showcases Tony McPhee’s determination to follow his muse to the end. His singing is confused and compassionate, dazed and un-macho at a time of hoot‘n’holler chest beating. And despite the wonder-fuelled strengths of Split’s first side, each song is reduced to the anonymity of mere numbers: “Split 1”, “Split 2”, “Split 3” and “Split 4”. Yet each is complete and each is anything but anonymous. The furious “Split 1” careers through its description of McPhee’s “suicidal derangement” as he termed it with murderous bass and wah guitar interplaying. “Split 2” de-tunes itself into awesome/awful life with a chasm guitar riff that snare shatters into a tearing riff account of McPhee leaping out of bed in black hole terror, before the floor of the room gives way and he ends: “I must get help before I go insane”.
(full version: headheritage.co.uk/unsung/album-of-the-month/groundhogs-split)

01. Split [Part One] (04:29)
02. Split [Part Two] (05:14)
03. Split [Part Three] (04:30)
04. Split [Part Four] (05:43)
05. Cherry Red (05:43)
06. A Year In The Life (03:15)
07. Junkman (05:02)
08. Groundhog (05:53)
09. Split [Part One] [Bonus Track, Live] (09:46)
10. Split [Part Two] [Bonus Track, Live] (06:17)
11. Split [Part Four] [Bonus Track, Live] (04:31)
12. Cherry Red [Bonus Track, Live] (04:10)

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Groundhogs - Blues Obituary (1969)

Year: 1969 (CD 1999)
Label: Akarma Records (Italy), AK 039
Style: Rock, Blues Rock
Country: England
Time: 34:01
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 208 Mb

Recorded during June of 1969 at Marquee Studios in London with Gary Collins and Colin Caldwell engineering, the trio of Groundhogs put the blues to rest on Blues Obituary in front of a castle on the Hogart-designed cover while six black and whites from photographer Zorin Matic grace the back in morbid Creepy or Eerie Magazine comic book fashion. Composed, written, and arranged by Tony "T.S." McPhee, there are seven tracks hovering from the around four- to seven-minute mark. The traditional "Natchez Burning," arranged by McPhee, fits in nicely with his originals while the longest track, the six-minute-and-50-second "Light Is the Day," features the most innovation -- a Ginger Baker-style tribal rant by drummer Ken Pustelnik allowing McPhee to lay down some muted slide work. As the tempo on the final track elevates along with manic guitar runs by McPhee, the jamming creates a color separate from the rest of the disc while still in the same style. Vocals across the board are kept to a minimum. It is all about the sound, Cream without the flash, bandleader McPhee vocally emulating Alvin Lee (by way of Canned Heat's Alan Wilson) on the four-minute conclusion to side one that is "Mistreated." While Americans like Grand Funk's Mark Farner turned the format up a commercial notch, Funk's "Mean Mistreater" sporting the same sentiment while reaching a wider audience, the Groundhogs on this late-'60s album keep the blues purely in the underground. The pumping beat on "Mistreated" embraces the lead guitarist's vocal, which poses that eternal blues question: "what have I done that's wrong?" Blistering guitar on the opening track, "B.D.D.," sets the pace for this deep excursion into the musical depths further down than Canned Heat ever dared go. While "Daze of the Weak" starts off sludgy enough, it quickly moves like a train out of control, laying back only to explode again. "Times" get things back to more traditional roots on an album that breaks little new ground, and is as consistent as Savoy Brown when they got into their primo groove.
(allmusic.com/album/blues-obituary-mw0000363074)

01. B.D.D. (03:50)
02. Daze of the Weak (05:16)
03. Times (05:19)
04. Mistreated (04:04)
05. Express Man (03:59)
06. Natchez Burning (04:38)
07. Light Was The Day (06:53)

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The Groundhogs - Thank Christ For The Bomb (1970)

Year: May 1970 (CD 1990)
Label: BGO Records (UK), BGOCD67
Style: Blues Rock, Classic Rock
Country: England
Time: 41:03
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 263 Mb

Thank Christ for the Bomb is the third studio album recorded by The Groundhogs, originally released by Liberty Records in 1970. It was engineered by Martin Birch, who had previously worked on albums by Deep Purple, Jeff Beck, Fleetwood Mac and Peter Green. It entered the UK Melody Maker album charts at number 27 on 20 June 1970, and had a total of 3 entries in that chart.
The album is a concept album, or to be exact, has two concepts. Side 1 (tracks 1–4) addresses what McPhee termed "alienness" while side 2 is, according to the sleeve notes, "the story of a man who lived in Chelsea all his life; first in a mansion then on the benches of the embankment".
(en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thank_Christ_for_the_Bomb)

Album recorded and mixed in the analog domain - AAD. That is, a minimum of digital processing.
A=Analog. D=digital. The first letter stands for how the music was recorded. The second letter for how it was mixed. The third letter stands for the format (all CD's will have D as the last letter).

01. Strange Town (04:18)
02. Darkness Is No Friend (03:46)
03. Soldier (04:51)
04. Thank Christ For The Bomb (07:18)
05. Ship On The Ocean (03:29)
06. Garden (05:22)
07. Status People (03:34)
08. Rich Man, Poor Man (03:27)
09. Eccentric Man (04:55)

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