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Forgotten gem of early British prog rock
For every Yes, ELP, Genesis, King Crimson, and the likes, there are like several times more prog rock bands that slipped through the cracks and became almost completely ignored. Scotland's Writing on the Wall is that one example. The Power of the Picts was released in 1969 on a small label called Middle Earth Records (the label only had something like five albums released in its very short life), so you know right the original LP isn't easy to come by. The band consisted of vocalist Linnie Paterson, guitarist Willy Finlayson, bassist Jake Scott, drummer Jimmy Hush, and keyboardist Bill Scott. Given that the album was released in 1969, it sounds like many other prog rock bands of the time that hadn't quite abandoned their hard rock, blues, and psychedelic roots. Sometimes the music is a bit like a much heavier Procol Harum, or of The Crazy World of Arthur Brown (at times Linnie Paterson can sound just like Brown, like on "Aries", but a lot of times he don't remind me of any particular vocalist). The highlights of this album, without a doubt include "Mrs. Cooper's Pie", "Aries", and "Bogeyman". "Aries" features some spoken dialog with a uniquely Scottish accent, with some space rock tendencies (especially in the organ work), heavy metal guitar riffs, and a cool jazzy solo. "Shadow of Man" is, like King Crimson's "The Devil's Triangle", another song that's partially borrowed from Holst's The Planets, only of course, the organ is used instead of the Mellotron. "Hills of Dream" is a more mellower piece and sounds more like typical early '70s British prog rock (ie, not much of a bluesy hard rock feel as you get throughout most of the album). The CD reissue also contains two bonus cuts, "Child on Crossing" and "Lucifer's Corpus". Both of these were originally released as a single in 1969 on the same label The Power of the Picts was released on, Middle Earth. In fact the single was the very first release on that label, and it basically tied people over until the band completed the album. Anyway, two excellent cuts that are very much in the same vein as the album itself, probably the only reason it never made it on to the original LP was due to lack of space. While "Mrs. Cooper's Pie", "Aries" and "Bogeyman" are clearly the album's best songs, the rest don't quite reach the heights of those songs, but none of them are bad. Worthwhile album if you like early British prog rock.