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Deerfield were another of those 'lost' Texas 'psychedelic' bands, this time from the Houston area I believe. Forming at school in 1968, by 1971 they had found work as a support act to various bigger bands who visited the city and also managed to release a sole privately-pressed LP. This saw scant distribution outside of their own locality, but is now considered a collector's item and stands as their only recorded legacy.
This CD reissue on Gear Fab is taken from a surviving vinyl copy of the album, and as such, some crackle and pop can be heard now and again. There's a slightly 'dead' quality to the drums and bass here, which suggests a 'homemade' production (done on a TEAC 4-track according to the liner note), but it still has plenty of charm.
The opener, 'Nil Desperandum', is quite slight, but pleasant enough in a 'throwaway summer pop' kinda way. This is followed by the waltz-like 'Man From Barnaby' which has lots of backwards swirling guitar and could be compared to Country Joe & the Fish to some extent. 'Kitty Is A Lady' has a hint of Buffalo Springfield and the following track, 'Family Comfort' goes further down that trail, being an acoustic piece with some nice fuzztone leads added; it almost sounds like America (the band, that is)!
Moving on, 'The Great Rio Grande Border Run' is an acoustic-led Texan hoedown-type affair with whoops, yee-hahs and 'rattlesnake' maracas, which I found to be quite compelling as it goes. 'Better Way' is a straighter rocker, somewhat reminiscent of Moby Grape and with a suitably tasty guitar break. The rather pretentiously titled 'Megopolis / Out Without' is - bizarrely enough - a jokey piano-led bar-room blues with fake bar-room sounds, etc in the background. Not a highlight and a weak way to end side one of the original LP.
Over on side two, we get 'The Trilogy', which is essentially 3 different tracks run together as one long 12 minute piece. It starts out with some John Cipollina-ish guitar, which leads into a Springfield-ish ballad ('Do You Believe In Words?'), then you get a vibrant acoustic guitar passage which winds up in a clap-your-hands type sing-a-long ('Sing Together'), followed by a mellow, melodic harmony piece called 'Relax (Enjoy Your Friends'). Not sure it fully works as a trilogy, but there's plenty to admire in the instrumentation, at least in my humble opinion. Overall, this sequence is the highlight of the record.
Track 9 - 'Me Lovin' You' - has a distinctly 'country' air to it, with prominent steel guitar. Again, this reflects the Buffalo Springfield influence I suspect. Final track, 'Riverside' is rather good - an introspective acoustic ballad, again somewhat reminiscent of America, which builds and ends up in another compelling extended guitar break before the sounds of children's voices close out the album.
Overall, I'd give Deerfield a cautious 'thumb's up' for this recording; it's certainly no masterpiece, but plenty of period charm shines through in the harmonies and the guitar breaks. It mostly probably doesn't even qualify as particularly 'psychedelic', but I'd still cautiously recommend it to genre specialists. Everyone else should look into Buffalo Springfield, Moby Grape, CSNY, etc first.
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他の国からのトップレビュー
sydfloyd
Don't despair, Deerfield are here!
2017年6月11日に英国でレビュー済みAmazonで購入
charles s coleman
I don't know who is distributing the disc but it was fun to hear again after many years
2015年2月11日にアメリカ合衆国でレビュー済みAmazonで購入
