Some albums are a great showcase of the time and culture they were produced in. This obscure
1970 creation involved a man of many shades, Ken Hensley, (pre the gods and
later uriah heep) is an entirely different creature. Orgasm is as sweet as it
is hard hitting, even the visual album art from the later pressing suggests that.
A lot of the lyrical content here is like a wet rag to the face, in a good way! It is very young, honest, and upfront. The opening track "climax/ you
tried to take it all" is confident and not here to stuff around. It feels
weirdly great to hear someone vocalize about possible sexual misadventure.
(Ahem! Looking at you "make the feeling last") whilst making you feel pretty well
part of the hot n' heavy sound orgy that is the title track.
Rolling on from the bawdy sounding opener , a very wavy
"Make the feeling last" slides in, to put you in a haze then calmly
tails off, then "You must come with me" brings you back into the
present with a thud. It's aggressive and urgent intro to this song about erm, a
demand, Is almost desperate. Pretty bold stuff, The beautiful contrast though?
A sides Closing track, "the girl who loved the girl who loved" is
musically very kind on the ears and gently tackles a topic of a scarred woman
who seeks love in female company, a less public topic of the time.
The real star of the show here for me is the B-side intro,
"orgasm". Hell! I mean, everyone loves one of those, it is probably
the least decorated and coded song of the lot. (Come to think of it, most of
the titles tell it like it is) The eerie sounding squeal after the needle drop
gets increasingly intense and gave me an impression of slight uncertainty,
which evaporates shortly after asserting itself into Steady strumming and sharp
riffs, BANG! Its got you. You cant leave. It's such a perfect balance of mellow
and off the chain wild. True to it's time, it made me keen to torch up a jade
cigarette, and suggestively start running my hand over the most available
person near me. This song aims to imitate, in its art form, a really good
sexual indulgence. With the very realistic and euphoric vocal performance, it
succeeds.
"The first time" follows this ordeal nicely, as
it's Melodic and organ enhanced, gives you a chance to get over what just
happened. As the closing track "scattering seeds" ended it almost
made me feel sad that the heady, sickly journey was over but happy I was
there!...until I flipped the disk over again. And again, aaand again.
Sure, its not without fault, but that's all subjective
really isn't it? There's no limit as to how many times I spin this, it always
gives the same results as it did the first time round - straight up audio
pleasure. Nobody actively looks for filler but even so, if you're a fan of
obscure early 70s rock, you won't find any lifeless tracks on this sex themed,
7 burner masterpiece.
-Rider On The Storm
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