Mr. Quimby's Beard - "The Unsolved Mysteries Of"
(Stone Premonitions SPCD 008)
Mr. Quimby's Beard - "The Unsolved Mysteries Of"
(Stone Premonitions SPCD 008)
From Aural Innovations #7 (July 1999)
I received a tape of their first CD called Out There and really enjoyed the Hawkwind inspired SpaceRock. I was a little disappointed to find this CD to be a cheap CD-R as some of my friends CD players could not play it. I assume it was released by the band, as they like everyone else who puts out stuff on Demi Monde, never get anything! Anyway, the sound quality is quite good and the songs great! This is an improvement on the first CD and has more excellent SPACEROCK! After the spacey introduction number the CD starts up with a song called Mystery that reminds me a lot of old Omnia Opera. Mystery is a vast number spanning 10 minutes and going through a number of phases from hard rocking to pure electronic. Great song. Snotty is a short mideastern instrumental track with a nice flangy guitar, not dissimilar from the Ozrics. D-Jam has a laid back bass line and nice lead synth that leads into an Ozric Tentacles jam. Clouds is a very Hawkwind inspired song with nice Huw like guitar leads. Beyond the Light starts out like a classic Hawkwind instrumental before really picking up into a solid rocker. Theme, Astral Path and Chords change the flavor of the disc and bring the tempo down a bit. Theme takes you to the rain forest with some nice flute playing a spacey synth backing. Astral Path and Chords feature some nice psych-edelic flavors with some very nice guitar playing. There Must Be Some Way Out Of Here starts with a mysterious sounding low drone before the echoying effects and tribal beat slowly build up and is a great song. The title track, the Unsolved Mysteries, is a short instrumental guitar and synth piece, that seems to be a piece of a unfinished jam?? A Gliget of Yune and the Calling of the Clans are short excursions into space. The CD ends with the excellent Round and Round. My main complaint, is that too many of the songs are in the 3-4 minute range and really feel like just pieces of something bigger and leave you wanting more. Overall, a very enjoyable CD. [Ed. note: The band is currently remastering this disc for what they consider will be a "proper" release.]
You can visit Mr Quimby's Beard at their web site.
Reviewed by Scott Heller