TRAPEZE — Medusa (review)

Album · 1970 · Proto-Metal

4/5 · 2015-06-10
voila_la_scorie

A band whose line-up sounds like a supergroup, Trapeze was home to vocals / bass Glenn Hughes (Deep Purple, Gary More, Iommi, solo, and more), guitar / vocals Mel Galley (Whitesnake, Phenomena), and drums / percussion Dan Holland (Judas Priest). The band formed as a five-piece and cut their self-titled debut in 1969. Shortly after, two members left, and Trapeze recorded two albums with this line-up until Hughes left in ’73 to join Deep Purple. Despite the short life span of this line-up, Hughes / Galley / Holland remains the best-known incarnation of Trapeze.

I first picked up this album several years ago while exploring bands that featured members who had been or were in Deep Purple. I had heard the name Trapeze two decades earlier when reading about the Judas Priest story and Dan Holland’s former band was mentioned. At the time I bought this album, I also bought “You’re the Music… We’re Just the Band” (the follow-up to “Medusa”) shortly after. This third album much better captured what I had expected from a Glenn Hughes band. The guitar sound was punchier and rocked out more, the vocals were more soulful, and the music had more swagger. Initially I was disappointed with “Medusa” and for a few years it remained untouched.

Jump to 2015 and there’s me putting together a six-CD playlist of proto-metal songs and scrounging around in my CD collection, and then Trapeze turns up. I only ever liked one track from this album, “Makes You Wanna Cry”, because it had a cool groove, some sweet power chords, Galley’s sincere guitar solo workout which was good enough to feel, and some great simple but funky bass, not to mention Holland’s solid drumming. Strangely enough, as I only ever gave this song so many repeat listens, I had the impression that Hughes’ vocals were really different from how he would sing on future recordings. I thought he sounded closer to the likes of Ozzy Osbourne on this song. Listening to the whole album through for the first time in years, I can now easily hear the power, the rough edge, and the soul in Hughes’ singing on all the other songs. A bit raw mind you, but it is unmistakably Glenn Hughes. Here, however, I am puzzled. I had to suspect that Mel Galley might have had the lead vocal duties. He wrote the song. Did he sing it? I searched around the Net but only found that he had taken over lead vocal duties after Hughes left. Could he have been the lead vocalist on this one track? The annals of Internet rock history are not speaking.

But this album, I have discovered at last, is more than just one good song and it rocks harder and heavier than I first gave it credit for. This time I am hearing “Medusa” not from a background of Deep Purple but from recent proto-metal explorations and this album is quite a fine taster of early heavy rock. Many have cited the Free similarities; however, most of Free’s work did not reach this level of hard hitting. And though there are moments when Hughes may sound a bit like Paul Rogers, Hughes puts much more power into his vocal deliver. The instrumental side of the band can really slam at times, even in songs like “Black Cloud” and “Touch My Life” which do start out sounding more like Free.

Trapeze went beyond simple blues-based and laid back or funky hard rock on “Medusa”. The title track and “Jury” start off with acoustic guitar but break into a heavy and grave atmosphere that is not far off from some of the proto-doom metal sounds that were on vinyl at the time.

The sound on this album is simple and clear. Vocals, guitar, bass, and drums with some bongos added on a track or two and acoustic and clean electric playing simultaneously on another track or two. “You’re the Music…” has a denser sound with more of a whump, whump feel. “Medusa” sounds more like a smack, crack that really works to bring out the impact of the music.

I am glad that I came back to this album. Now when I read how it is one of the greatest underrated and most overlooked albums of its time, I can understand why others feel that way. Out of so many proto-metal albums I have reviewed, this is one of the few to really deliver a steady, solid round of hard rocking and heavy hitting numbers, with a few touches of delicate acoustic in the mix for seasoning but without spoiling the flavour.