I apologize in advance if my return is short-lived. I'm fairly certain I've been writing to an empty auditorium recently and can only fondly remember the rather robust discussions this site used to have once upon a time. Now the site seems more of a running catalog of unrelated individualistic comments. R.I.P. Bob, Chuck, Cianan, Starr, and whoever I'm missing at the moment.
That said, Dan over at Layla's Classic Rock has unwittingly introduced me to Spirit recently. Three weeks after reading his post, I've now listened to their first four albums dozens of times with stupendous glee. And Sardonicus, friends, is a fucking doozy of an album, mostly attributable, dare I say it, to the drumming. Ed Cassidy is not a drumming god. I wouldn't know his bald head from any other bald head, but damn, he's got this jazzy looseness to him that I think acts as the thread of the album. He's got some nice fills on "Prelude - Nothing To Hide" and "Morning Will Come," to name a few. Randy California is no slouch, either -- if drumming is the thread, the guitar is the needle sewing up all the right spots, from the greasy fuzz slide on "Prelude," the explosive noodling in "Street Worm" or the artful stabbing notes in "Morning." Throw in some brass, piano and some really nice vocal harmonies ("Nature's Way") and you've got, if you're me, the best discovery of 2010, which is shaping up to be a shitter otherwise. Mad Hatter, over and out, pluterperfectly.
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