BEDEMON — Child of Darkness: From the Original Master Tapes (review)

BEDEMON — Child of Darkness: From the Original Master Tapes album cover

Boxset / Compilation · 2005 · Doom Metal

4/5 · 2015-05-02
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After Black Sabbath became famous, this heavier style of rock should have become more popular. In fact, several bands around the world picked up on the sound, including Iron Claw in Scotland, Pax in Peru, Bang in the U.S. and many others. Strangely though, most of these bands either lightened up their sound or became more progressive, or they split. It's almost as if the original child that was doom metal was doomed from the start to a short life.

But in Virginia there were a few young men who had been smitten by heavy riff rock, first by the thunderous debut by Blue Cheer and later by Sabbath. Bobby Liebling led Pentagram, the most successful of these bands, successful meaning that they actually cut a couple of singles and got some quality demos recorded plus had an 80-song repertoire of original material. His friend, Randy Palmer was also interested in dark, heavy music but was not so much interested in starting up a band. Instead, he asked Liebling and some of the members of Pentagram to record his songs in his home.

Recording sessions took place in 1973, 1974, and later again in 1979. Home recording equipment was used and everything was recorded live. Palmer, the song writer, chose to play the rhythm guitar and left the vocals up to Liebling and the lead guitar to Mike Matthews. The songs sound very similar to those of 1970's Pentagram because of the slow and heavy riff rock / doom metal approach and the fact that Liebling is the vocalist. Yet the two bands sound more like brothers and not twins. Actually, Bedemon was never meant to be an proper band. They never toured or performed. It was always Palmer's project. An interesting note about the name: Palmer was considering naming the band project Beelzebub or Demon and when pressed he couldn't decide. Finally someone just suggested that he call the band Bedemon and the name stuck.

About these original recordings, some of them were recorded using Liebling's Aiwa tape recorder which had a higher quality sound reproduction, but when tapes were played on non-Aiwa players the tracks didn't sync right. Unfortunately it was these recordings that originally became bootlegged.

Palmer joined Pentagram on rhythm guitar at least twice during the seventies and once again during the eighties but only for short stints of about three months. In the new millennium he discovered that his music had been bootlegged and was being sold as well as Bedemon products, none of which earned him any royalties. He decided to form a real band and record a new album's worth of material. Sadly, he was killed in a motor vehicle accident when the son of a Washington lawyer ran a red light while under the influence. In 2006, Relapse Records released the Bedemon 70's material, attempting to fix up the sync problems. In 2015, the album was released again with a 32-page booklet telling the history of Randy Palmer and Bedemon.

The music here is pretty raw and lo-fi. If sound quality is important to you than you'll likely have a hard time with this. However, aside from that, I personally feel there is some wonderful heavy stuff going on here. The riffs, the drums, Liebling's vocals, the thundering bass, cymbal crashes - everything comes together. Who knows what a proper studio recording might have turned out but I find the lo-fi sound is not objectionable and captures the spirit of the music very well.

You will not find any acoustic numbers or piano ballads mixed in. Each track is heavy with one or two going slower and without the guitar distortion at first. Despite that, the early doom metal atmosphere never lets up. There are some spine-shivering moments, but I find the first half of the album more interesting probably because there is little variation in the style so I get lulled into the atmosphere of the album. I will say that in particular the last two tracks, "Nighttime Killers" and "Axe to Grind", feature some more melodic guitar that is closer to NWoBHM, no coincidence I suspect as they were recorded in 1979. Also, Palmer finally agrees to play some lead guitar on these two tracks so it is his style that also likely stands out.

I was really glad to get notification of this album's 2015 release and pre-ordered it. After hearing Bedemon on YouTube I really wanted to get the CD, but the 2006 reissue was expensive. The sound is as good as it is likely to get and even though it still sounds like what my friend and I used to record in his bedroom back in the eighties, the music is worth hearing.