MOUNTAIN — Flowers of Evil (review)

Album · 1971 · Hard Rock

3.5/5 · 2016-12-25
Bmiler

Mountain is often overlooked when roots of metal is discussed. Even people who think they never heard of this band, when I bring up "Mississippi Queen", the reaction is "Oh yes, I know that song", and can understand when I mention them as being proto-metal. Unfortunately, for most of the public, that's all they know, and that's too bad. Flowers of Evil is their third album, and a strange one, as it's one half studio, one half live. The title track is typical Mountain, what else can I say. "King's Chorale" is frequently maligned, written by Felix Pappalardi, it's clear that Steve Knight is most dominant here, largely him on organ, although Leslie West provides some guitar too. What's wrong with this piece? I don't see anything wrong, it sounds like your typical piece of atmospheric early '70s prog rock, although it's very brief. "One Last Cold Kiss" is a great piece, almost a bit of a medieval feel to it. If that's Felix Pappalardi singing, it's obvious he's not imitating Jack Bruce the way he did on previous albums. "Crossroader" is almost in Deep Purple territory, Steve Knight providing that similar fuzzed Hammond organ Jon Lord frequently did, although you often wish Steve Knight would cut loose some times (it's Knight's reluctance to solo that caused a rift between Leslie West and him). "Pride and Passion" isn't my favorite, and a bit disjointed. The second half is all live, largely consisting of extended jams. Here's where the problem lies: Steve Knight does not appear to be present here (gave this another listen, yes, he's there, but in a very low-key fashion). I have already mentioned his apparent reluctance to jam (someone stated that "Steve Knight was the most useless musician in rock history", OK, that may be going a bit too far, but his presence was always in the background, he just seemed rather modest, compared to Keith Emerson where he'll solo at every opportunity). They do a version of Chuck Berry's "Roll Over Beethoven", but then it's largely a guitar-oriented jam, as well as a version of "Dreams of Milk and Honey", from Leslie West's solo album Mountain from 1969 (which is where the band got its name). They also take on "Mississippi Queen", which only makes sense since that became their signature song.

To me this album is underrated, and I'll tell you why: I bought an old LP, for dirt cheap, at a flea market in Eugene, Oregon, and when I brought it home, the pressing wasn't that great, and the Audio Technica 440MLa cartridge even makes lousy vinyl sound great, but even this cartridge couldn't make it sound good. The LP came with a card warning you of the sound quality, because they had to cram more music that usual on side two (side two is nearly 30 minutes long, in late '71 that was probably the lengthiest single LP. Genesis, Klaus Schulze and Todd Rundgren were known to cram an hour, or even more on one LP, but that was later on, in 1971 Genesis still recorded albums barely 40 minutes long). Still Flowers of Evil, despite its shortcomings, is an underrated album and worth getting.