Andromeda

Andromeda's sole album was heavy guitar psychedelia that leaned far more toward the lurking hard rock, progressive, and occasionally metal movements than it did toward more pop- and song-oriented psych. There were some impressive guitar exchanges, and as songwriters they certainly didn't lack ambition. No less than three of the eight tracks are three-part epics, clocking in at around seven or eight minutes each. Obviously they took care to vary the tempos and shadings; grandstanding solos and freakouts are alternated with quieter, slower passages. At one point in "Turns to Dust," for instance, they sound rather like Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac; in "When to Stop," a painfully frenzied bit of guitar skronk is followed by pretty flamenco-ish acoustic guitar that subtly quotes from the Yardbirds' "Still I'm Sad." But the songs are meandering and forgettable, for the most part, sometimes bearing passing similarity to Cream at their most indulgent, or looking ahead to the crunch of Led Zeppelin. It's too bombastic, although the absence of a screeching high-voiced singer, as so many bands of this type boast, does help. The place to buy this is on the Angel Air two-CD set Definitive Collection, which leads off with all of the tracks from the LP in sequence, and also contains a non-LP single and more than 20 previously unreleased studio, live, and radio cuts. ~ Richie Unterberger