siLLy puPPy The late 60s had been a tumultuous ride for Hammond organ wizard, pianist and bassist Vincent Crane who had ridden high as part of the whacky Crazy World Of Arthur Brown, however Brown himself demanded to be the center of attention which left a bad taste in the mouths of the supporting musicians who were keeping him afloat. Crane jumped shipped and took drummer Carl Palmer (yes, THAT Carl Palmer) with him to form their own version of heavy soulful rock with a few prog curve balls. The answer came in the form of ATOMIC ROOSTER after snatching up bassist / vocalist / flautist / guitarist Nick Graham to form the new power trio. However, this new vision only lasted a mere album when they recorded and released the debut 
“Atomic Roooster,” before Carl Palmer decided that Crane’s musical vision wasn’t a good match. It wouldn’t be long before he would join Emerson, Lake & Palmer and become one of prog’s biggest stars.

Unfortunately Graham would jump ship as well and join Skin Alley which left Vincent Crane scrambling for suitable replacements. After scouring the musical world for the right talent to align forces with, Crane ultimately settled on Andromeda vocalist and guitarist John Du Cann who would handle the triple duties as guitarist, bassist and lead vocalist. For the near impossible task of replacing the jazz-rock master Carl Palmer, newbie Paul Hammond joined the crew and the new triumvirate of talent had been christened and the creative process began to take root. This all led to the next phase of ATOMIC ROOSTER which released the second album DEATH WALKS BEHIND YOU a mere seven months after the debut in the same year of 1970 and the trio that appeared at this stage would be forever referred to as the “classic” lineup.

This sophomore offering is what is known as the most critically lauded, most popular and well known album of the entire ATOMIC ROOSTER canon with its instantly recognizable cover art of the William Blake monotype Nebuchadnezzar, a character that according to legend was a former ruler who lost his mind through hubris and reduced to animalistic insanity. The cover art wasn’t just a gloom and doom artistic photo op but actually provided inspiration for the darkened themes contained in the album’s eight track run. While Crane had been the main compositional writer on the debut, DEATH WALKS BEHIND YOU finds an equal playing field with Du Cann writing and co-creating as much material as Crane. The result is a tremendously different sounding album that finds the balance of power working in favor of a more interesting and dynamic roster of musical treats. Sadly no songwriting from Hammond.

Despite the album residing on the heavier side of rock with progressive elements strewn about, the title track plays a beautiful mind trick by starting out with a creepy piano jingle accompanied by a weird series of guitar squeals which sets the darkened macabre tone of the album before it jumps into the more familiar guitar and organ dominated bluesy rock shuffles with the rather unorthodox songwriting procedures of the era. The immediate effect is that DEATH WALKS BEHIND YOU is immediately more mesmerizing than the debut album with much more interesting guitar riffs, a better mix of keys and drums and the far superior vocal style of Du Cann whose vox box was tailor made for the part. At a playing time of over seven and a half minutes, the band manage to craft exquisite twists and turns in their boogie based heavy rock antics.

While the opening title track establishes ATOMIC ROOSTER as a veritable heavy rock band with a wealth of sophisticated tricks up their sleeve, the following instrumental “VUG” on the other hand showcases their prog chops with incessant time signature deviations, exquisite instrumental interplay and a flair of musical adventurism woefully absent from the album prior that only emerged a scant few months before. While primarily a rhythmic backdrop to showcase the supreme organ dominated gymnastics, scorching guitar solos are allowed to fire away unencumbered. The riff-laden hit single “Tomorrow Night” follows and changes gears to an almost Santana-esque percussive frenetic pace but it’s the intricate guitar parts that steal the show. The track made it all the way to No. 11 on the UK charts in 1971.

The secret to DEATH WALKS BEHIND YOU’s amazing popularity is the diversity of the tracks. Every single one has its own personality and sounds completely different from what it just followed. “Seven Lonely Streets” (“7 Streets” on some albums) is the most straight forward rocker although rich with Hammond organ stabs. “Sleeping For Years” i starts with a blistering series of guitar tricks before erupting into another organ driven heavy rocker and has a rather Jethro Tullish vocal swagger to it actually. “I Can’t Take No More” reminds me of Jeff Lynne’s future ELO track “Don’t Bring Me Down” in the guitar melody department. One of the lesser tracks here. “Nobody Else” begins with freaky vocal effects before breaking into piano ballad territory. While clearly the mellowest track on the album, it has interesting time signatures and slight pauses between the piano notes. It picks up steam in the middle as it starts to rock.

The entire album really leads up to the impressive closer “Gershatzer” up to which the band members hold back their avant-garde urges and let em all gush out in this eight minute prog behemoth of a track. While starting out as a rather familiar organ led heavy guitar, bass and drum rocker, it quickly finds Hammond’s percussive drive taking on a new energetic level as he seems like he’s become a hundred times more caffeinated. Likewise, Crane finds some stellar piano shredding which turns into a series of absolutely bizarre experimental organ riffs. The track hops, skips and jumps from frenetic musical outbursts to placid calming slower piano runs. Overall the track reminds me of some of the symphonic prog that Focus would latch onto with tracks like “Eruption” on their second album, however much weirdness occurs on this grand finale which leaves little doubt that ATOMIC ROOSTER belongs in the prog universe.

DEATH WALKS BEHIND YOU is a major step up in quality from the decent but not mind blowing debut album. The so-called classic lineup gels perfectly together as they create some of the most pleasing musical interplay within the beautifully crafted compositions. There is not a boring track on this one and if you find yourself with the re-mastered 2004 edition with bonus tracks, you’ll be treated to the B-Side “Play The Game,” the 1970 demo “The Devil’s Answer” as well asa several BBC Radio Session tracks. While the album is utterly essential and cream of the ATOMIC ROOSTER crop, these extra goodies make a great album even better. Unfortunately the quality heard on this sophomore album wouldn’t last very long. While the following “In Hearing Of Atomic Rooster” is an excellent followup, the band would fall into the mediocrity club fairly quickly. For this moment however, they crafted one of the best heavy rock albums of 1970.

martindavey87 I'd certainly never consider myself much of an Atomic Rooster fan, and only bought this album because it was £1 and I thought they'd be worth checking out. With that said, I'm actually surprised at how much I like some of the songs. Often associated with the progressive rock genre, I never figured that Atomic Rooster would sound so funky and jazzy. Very smooth indeed.

While these may not be progressive rock masterpieces, there are a few nice tunes in here which definitely make it worth the pound I spent on it. The main highlight for me being ‘Stand By Me’, a song which I liked immediately upon hearing it. I've also grown rather fond of ‘Don't Know What Went Wrong’, ‘Can't Find a Reason’ and ‘Take One Toke’.

With this being my first exposure to Atomic Rooster, I have no idea how well these tracks hold up as representations of the band, but it's a decent enough album for me.

siLLy puPPy The birth pangs of ATOMIC ROOSTER can actually be traced back all the way to the whacky 60s UK phenomenon The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown where two of the members: Vincent Crane and Carl Palmer jumped ship to have a go at their own musical visions. In the beginning they were only a trio after they recruited a third member, Nick Graham to handle bass, lead vocals, flute and additional guitars. Crane would handle organ and keyboards while Palmer cranked out the percussive drive necessary to add the harder rockin’ edge. Whereas the Arthur Brown project set out to conquer the flashy entertainment world of psychedelic rock and even had a huge hit with their 1968 single “Fire,” the direction of ATOMIC ROOSTER was to take a more soulful approach and desired to take the funk and soul approach of James Brown and Stevie Wonder and marry it with the dynamic instrumental workouts of British progressive rock that was its infancy big bang phase at the time.

The trio didn’t waste any time releasing their first album titled ATOMIC ROOOSTER (not eponymous, has 3 o’s and also spelled RO-O-OSTER on later CD reissues) in 1970 with that famous ridiculous cover of a green eagle with a rooster head with voluptuous female milkers drooping down in the midst of a cube with a purple shadow next to a chair. The cover art ranks high on my WTF list! Soon after this was released, Nick Graham whose vocals grace this album would jump ship and John Du Cann would replace him and then overdub three tracks for a slightly different US release (bonus tracks on the expanded CD version and quite well done). ATOMIC ROOOSTER, the album kicks things off with the hard rockin’ “Friday The Thirteenth” which joins the ranks of a number of harder rockin’ bands marry some heaviness with the keyboard rich proto-prog that was oozing out of the late 60s music scene.

While not totally unlike bands like Deep Purple, it is apparent that the ROOSTER was cock-a-doodling some funk and soul in its mix and focuses on heavy grooves, more soulful vocals as well as the Hammond rich organ runs and hard percussive drumming drive that Carl Palmer was delivering quite skillfully even at this stage of his career. Many of the tracks on this album follow suit with the same exact formula that deftly mixes the soulful grooves with the harder edged prog elements which was Crane’s main style of songwriting who was the main songwriter for this album. The one track “Broken Wing’s” which is a John Mayall cover sounds rather out of place in comparison despite Palmer’s best efforts to give it a percussive backbone clearly demonstrating Crane’s different approach to songwriting.

Despite the efforts of fusing British prog with American soul and funk, this debut release still sounds a little devoid of a completely successfully fusion of the disparate styles and feels much more firmly rooted in the late 60s psychedelic scene than the progressive 70s. The keyboard rich rhythms are a dead giveaway and make this release sound a bit dated in not only its style but its delivery which has hints of Procol Harum, Deep Purple and of course, The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown. Graham’s vocal abilities are a point of contention for me as well. While he successfully gets the job done by hitting the correct notes and emphasizes dramatic phrases that serve to heighten the musical tension, my main problem is that his range is a little limited and the music would have been more animated with a slightly more gifted vox box. While ATOMIC ROOSTER yielded some decent fruit on their freshman effort, it would be eclipsed by the lineup change and release of their second album “Death Walks Behind You.” Album number is chock full of nice pleasant late 60s sounding chops, rhythms and keyboard fantasies but doesn’t quite make the highly essential list for me.

If you’re going get this one you should really be sure to get the 2004 Castle Music CD reissue that contains the three overdubbed versions of “Friday The 13th,” “Before Tomorrow” and “S.L.Y.” with Du Cann on guitar and vocals. The comparison between the originals and redubs are astounding as it was fortuitous that Graham moved on to let a more talented vocalist take the reins. Also included are two equally better live versions at the BBC Radio Session in 1970. The bonus tracks make this a much better album than it would be otherwise but of course my rating is for the original release.

Andy "Rarities" is a compilation album of rare and unreleased material by the British rock band Atomic Rooster. As it is structured this compilation could be an album of Atomic Rooster. And no one could say that is not true!!! Demos, Radio ad, rare songs... The sound is good... John Du Cann has done a nice job. The songs/ tracks are generally good. Only that this compilation is heavy and unattractive. Because of this is the fact that there is no true Heavy Metal or Hard Rock. The music is only a Rock with Hard sound and heavy atmospheres. Good songs are: "Death Walks Behind You" (live studio version from 1981/ unreleased), "Do You Know Who’s Looking for You?" (demo version, 1980), "Don’t Lose Your Mind" (demo version, 1980), "End Of The Day" (demo version, 1981), "Lost In Space" (demo version, 1980), "Play It Again" (demo version, 1981) and "I Can’t Take No More" (live at the Marquee, 1980). These songs are little Heavy Metal jewelry. But, for the rest, the other tracks fail to excite me like they should.

This compilation is good, because is a compilation of rare demos, unreleased tracks, live tracks and radio ad. But, sincerely, it's nothing important. Unless you're a die-hard fan of atomic rooster.

Sinkadotentree There is no questioning the talent of this trio with Vincent Crane on keyboards, John Du Cann on guitar and Paul Hammond on drums. In fact listening to each of these guys individually on this record leaves me very impressed. It's just never been an album that's blown me away like it does most. What BLACK SABBATH was doing at this time was much more powerful and i guess it's just my taste in that i much more enjoy guitar driven music to organ driven tunes. Still there's lots to like here and it has grown on me. The title track is quite haunting with the dark piano lines and eerie guitar expressions, but that's where the haunting music ends. Certainly fans of DEEP PURPLE and the like will rate this one highly.