Black Widow (1971)

Another one of all those albums I bought because I thought the cover was cool. Probably I also found it really cheap if I know myself right. This cover made me think that the music would be deep, psychedelic, mystical and overall kind of druggy. That turned out not to be quite the case, which made me a bit disappointed. For this reason, this album always pursued a relatively secluded life in my record collection. In a way, it is a pity, if I had only been able to listen to the album without these initial expectations, maybe I would have found it better than I did.

The British band Black Widow was created in 1969, this eponymous album was their second. Those who may remember this band will probably remember it as an occult devil worshiping band (oh, how I wish I could play in one of those). On their debut album Sacrifice, there was the song they are best known for, "Come to the Sabbath." On this second album you don’t hear much of this occult stuff going on. They had previously caused some alarm with their music and concerts in which part of the show included a staged execution of a woman. That may be one of the reasons that they shifted in focus - too much focus on other things in the media besides the music. Of course, the band has always been compared to Black Sabbath, but from what I have heard with these bands they differ in the music quite a lot.

It is difficult to define the music on this album, the word "rock" is what first pops into my head. The internet site allmusic.com describes the music as "... a half-baked amalgam of progressive rock, folk music, British blues, and - the least of all - A Few very tenuous notions of hard rock and proto-metal ...". The experts seem to perceive a wild mix of genres in it, in other words.

Frankly, the music on this album is not something extraordinary. It’s OK, but not more. It's fun that they throw in a flute in some of the songs since this instrument has always been one of my favorites in rock music. But otherwise it feels like a lot of the music could be created by any garage band at any time. As a younger man I liked some drug references that appear in some songs, like "The Journey" ("... the acid man is gonna take my hand ...") or "When my mind was young" which entire text, I suspect, is a long drug reference. That created a certain fascination for the music within the younger version of myself, for some obscured reason. Maybe it was the mystique and the reality-altering experiences that drugs could cause that created the thrill? As a youngster I was fascinated by everything that was out of our normal reality, such as religious ideas and experiences, spiritual journeys, or hallucinogenic adventures. Just looking at the cover convinced me that this band was involved in these kind of things. Now, I suspect that this is indeed the case, but I also believe that there is a possibility that the creator of the cover just thought it was a cool picture he’d made. Or maybe the fascination had its roots in the feeling (and admiration) of the rebellious in experimenting with drugs. To do things that goes outside of what the society thinks is acceptable. That takes some courage, perhaps a courage I always felt I wanted more of. I was usually the quite guy who did what he was told, and seldom dared to go outside the frame and the limits the surrounding society had created.

I have a feeling that this record will continue to keep a low profile in the record shelf. Maybe I’ll take it out once a year to dust off it, but there is much more exciting stuff to listen to.

 

Favourite tracks

Tears and Wine

When my mind was young

Mary Clark

 

Tracklist

Side A

1 Tears And Wine

2 The Gypsy

3 Bridge Passage

4 When My Mind Was Young

5 The Journey

 

Side B

1 Poser

2 Mary Clark

3 Wait Until Tomorrow

4 An Afterthought

5 Legend Of Creation