(psychedelic/early progressive rock) Writing On the Wall (1969) The Power Of the Picts - 2000, APE (image+.cue), lossless

One of the relatively few Scottish psychedelic bands to make a mark upon the British scene, Writing on the Wall issued just one album during its five-year career. That LP, 1969's The Power of the Picts, offered heavy psychedelia in transition to hard bluesy progressive rock. Its prominent organ and theatrically dramatic vocals drew liberal influences from the Crazy World of Arthur Brown and the Doors, and to a lesser degree from Procol Harum and Traffic, though Writing on the Wall was more somber and less melodic than any of those bands. While ambitious and underground in its attitude, the music wasn't all that original or significant, though it didn't keep Writing on the Wall from continuing to plug away until the end of 1973. Only one mid-1973 single was added to their official discography, however, despite an active live schedule, periodic radio and TV recording, and an attempt to cut a second album in 1972.
Writing on the Wall grew out of the Edinburgh mid-'60s band the Jury, which moved with the times from soul music to psychedelic rock, changing their name to the Writing on the Wall by the beginning of 1968. Their manager, Brian Waldman, had them move to London that year, providing gigs for them in the psychedelic-underground-oriented club he'd opened in the city, the Middle Earth. By late 1968 they'd recorded a BBC radio session for DJ John Peel, and around that time, they recorded a live demo album to solicit a deal. Though Tetragrammaton expressed interest, eventually -- with slightly different personnel than had been in the lineup when they first relocated to London -- they recorded the LP The Power of the Picts for Waldman's Middle Earth label. The record didn't attract much notice outside of Scotland, and while acclaim for their energetic live show enabled them to keep playing for a few more years, their well of new original material dried up in the absence of more record releases. They did do another Peel session in 1971, and after more personnel changes had reduced their lineup to the one that had comprised the Jury in 1966, they recorded an unreleased LP in Edinburgh in 1972. A final single, "Man of Renown," appeared on Pye in mid-1973, and they started work on another album in Wales in late 1973, but finally threw in the towel when their equipment was stolen in December of that year.

Writing on the Wall's only album was theatrical heavy blues-psychedelic-rock that, despite its power and menace, was too obviously derivative of better and more original artists to qualify as a notable work. The organ-guitar blends owe much to the Doors, Procol Harum, and Traffic, though the attitude is somehow more sour and ominous than any of those groups. The vocals are sometimes pretty blatant in their homages to Arthur Brown, particularly when Linnie Paterson climbs to a histrionic scream; Jim Morrison, Gary Brooker, and Stevie Winwood obviously left their imprints on him too. Throw in some of the portentous drama from the narrations to the Elektra astrological concept album The Zodiac: Cosmic Sounds (particularly on "Aries") as well. A problem is, however, that not many singers other than Morrison and Brown could pull off this kind of solemn poetic mood, and on "Aries," to take one example, the attempt to create a seance-like atmosphere seems faintly ridiculous. To look at the positives, the band does play with a soul-rock crunch; the songs sometimes shift tempo (occasionally in and out of martial beats) and melody unpredictably, if not nearly as memorably as, say, the Crazy World of Arthur Brown did; and there are occasional off-the-wall touches of accordion and, on "Virginia Waters," speaking-in-tongues vocals with a nod to Family's Roger Chapman.

Exact Audio Copy V0.99 prebeta 4 from 23. January 2008

EAC extraction logfile from 27. August 2008, 21:47

Writing on the Wall / The Power Of The Picts

Used drive : HL-DT-STDVD-RAM GSA-E20N Adapter: 3 ID: 2

Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No

Read offset correction : 102
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Installed external ASPI interface

Used output format : Internal WAV Routines
Sample format : 44.100 Hz; 16 Bit; Stereo

TOC of the extracted CD

Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
---------------------------------------------------------
1 | 0:00.32 | 3:45.03 | 32 | 16909
2 | 3:45.35 | 5:57.24 | 16910 | 43708
3 | 9:42.59 | 3:42.50 | 43709 | 60408
4 | 13:25.34 | 3:08.30 | 60409 | 74538
5 | 16:33.64 | 5:56.61 | 74539 | 101299
6 | 22:30.50 | 4:18.21 | 101300 | 120670
7 | 26:48.71 | 3:21.21 | 120671 | 135766
8 | 30:10.17 | 3:46.53 | 135767 | 152769
9 | 33:56.70 | 8:08.69 | 152770 | 189438
10 | 42:05.64 | 3:32.43 | 189439 | 205381
11 | 45:38.32 | 5:43.01 | 205382 | 231107

Range status and errors

Selected range

Filename C:\Writing on the Wall - The Power Of The Picts.wav

Peak level 98.8 %
Range quality 100.0 %
Copy CRC 6ECB68D1
Copy OK

No errors occurred

End of status report