When I did the Where to Start: The Heavy ’70s post way back in July, more than half my motivation was to see the kind of response it would get from people out there in terms of suggested albums for me to check out. Kind of a greedy endeavor on my part, but screw it, I’m a bit of a bastard. These things happen.

In the comments section of that post, Victhor the Viking suggested I check out three albums, two of which I’d never heard of. Those two, which I subsequently (and drunkenly) purchased from Amazon and have been thoroughly rocking since, were Hard Attack by Dust from 1972 and Silberbart‘s 1971 debut, 4 Times Sound Razing.

Both are reissues, obviously. Dust comes care of noted bringers of obscurities Repertoire Records, and Silberbart is a 2002 repressing by Progressive Line. I hadn’t, but you may have heard of Dust before if you’re a punker, since drummer Marc Bell later went on to become Marky Ramone several years later. Silberbart, though they launched the career of Peter Behrens, who went on to release a handful of singles and do some acting work in his native Germany, were never heard from after this one quizzically-titled album.

It is a striking work though, 4 Times Sound Razing. After the relatively accessible opener “Chub Chub Cherry,” Silberbart goes completely off the wall on three 10-minute-plus songs, “Brain Brain,” the excellent “God” (Hypnos 69: if you’re paying attention, please cover this song) and “Head Tear of the Drunken Sun,” taking early King Crimson ambience to sometimes horrifying places and transitioning with ease from the outer reaches of the psychosphere to grounded heavy rock. It’s like the album is riding a space elevator back and forth, which, as I’m sure you can imagine, kind of kicks ass.

Dust‘s Hard Attack, which has one of the greatest ’70s rock album covers of all time (the prize might go to Vol. 4 or Buffalo‘s Volcanic Rock), is a decidedly more straightforward — less Krautrock — affair, with its highlight in album-closer “Suicide.” It was Dust‘s second record behind a 1971 self-titled, and the last one they ever did, but it was clear to see their sound was developing into something more complex than simple heavy/acid rock. And yes, the drums sound fantastic throughout. Actually, it’s one of the better early ’70s drum sounds I’ve heard, although I’d credit that just as much if not more to the remastering job Hard Attack received than to the original production. Maybe some vinyl hound can correct me if I’m wrong there.

In any case, two killer records picked up at reasonable cost I thought I’d share with anyone who maybe hadn’t heard them before. They may only have come out a year apart, but the differences between the them highlight the diversity present within the heavy rock scene even in its most nascent stages. Well worth checking out for curious parties and historians of the heavy.

Tags: Dust, Germany, New York, Silberbart

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 14th, 2010 at 2:50 pm and is filed under Buried Treasure. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.