Sir Lord Baltimore - Sir Lord Baltimore (1971) US 180g Pressing - LP/FLAC In 24bit/96kHz

Having barely managed to coexist for even half a decade at the tail end of the post-Beatles rock explosion, there is little wonder that the delightfully obscure work of New York’s Sir Lord Baltimore is yet a question mark for the vast majority of heavy metal’s legions. But for those who have experienced both albums, that question mark most surely has been replaced by an exclamation point; the other bands of that era and hemisphere like Iron Butterfly, Blue Cheer, and Mountain barely hold a candle to the SLB’s raging wildfire take on rock ‘n’ roll extremity. Even amongst their fans however, their second, self-titled release often gets shrugged off in favor of the raucous debut. Admittedly this is a fair appraisal given the sophomore flaws that manifest for extended periods, but for fans of the history of heavy, a space on your shelf should be reserved for both.

The most common complaint leveled at this album, the extreme polarization that occurs between flips of the record, is pretty hard to defend by even the most open-minded of consumers. There is such a jarring disparity between sides A and B that a casual listener would be excused for thinking that Sir Lord Baltimore was in fact a split album between some cheeky Oxford university dropouts calling themselves “Sir Lord” and some scummy headbangers named after their hometown on the Chesapeake Bay. Opener “Man from Manhattan” is an undoubtedly ambitious progressive take imported straight from the British heart of the movement, but apparently the assembly instructions for this multi-part suite were printed elsewhere, as much seems to have been misunderstood in translation. Long have I sailed the seas of seventies’ European rock and rarely have I encountered flotsam this carelessly constructed. Each of the barely-interrelated pieces seem to be building up and building up to some climactic payoff only for the 10+ minute tale to fizzle out; a dud after all. Louie Dambra’s lead passages are carefully phrased (even when riding off the extended motif that carries several minutes in the meat of the tune) and there’s a particularly threatening bit with some ethereal chanting around two and a half minutes in that’s pretty cool, despite the embarrassingly silly lyrics (“there was a man who came to Manhattan; tied in white satin, he could speak Latin”). But mostly it’s just a baffling affair; I’d have expected this sort of thing from a Gnidrolog or a Nektar, but not from SLB. The subsequent “Where are We Going” is a little boogie number with a gospel-sing-along slant that’s quickly forgotten.

Side B, though, is an entirely different engagement and the logical continuation of the band’s previous album. In some ways, it’s actually even better! John Garner’s animalistic caterwauling is much more restrained and, uncoincidentally, his drum performance is that much tighter. The curious, bluesy, narrative pacing that was so characteristic of the debut’s tracks is retained here, but applied to generally lengthier, more detailed compositions. There’s also the addition of Louie’s brother Joey on second guitar, the pairing of which has resulted in some of the most exciting harmonized lines in heavy metal up to this point, several years before Eric Bell, the Schenkers, and the Downing/Tipton tag team would get their hands dirty with the possibilities. And let’s not forget about the heavy! Oh the heavy…SLB on side B are like the fat dude at the front of the line at the grand opening of an all-you-can-eat buffet: they barge in the door at moment one and proceed to get heavier and heavier until they’re finally sated several courses later. “Chicago Lives” is a gnarly, groovy number and “Lo and Behold” rocks a memorably forceful stomping riff for much of its playtime, but both are diminished by the sheer bravado of “Woman Tamer” and its distorted romancing, the fearsome nature of which would be otherwise entirely foreign to this side of the Pacific.

But closer “Caesar ‘71” is another matter entirely. A cavernous production featuring the most colossal guitar chords this side of Master of Reality, one can’t help but imagine a young Mark Shelton lying on the floor of his bedroom, pulp printings of Robert E. Howard stories in hand, staring wide-eyed in disbelief at the impossibly thunderous sound oozing out of his stereo and longing for the day he gets his hands on an electric guitar, so he can finally decipher just what the holy hell Louie Dambra was doing to bring forth such cacophony! I posit that this humble banger served as the early blueprints for an entire wave of American heavy metal bands, be they Manilla Road, Manowar, Legend, Cirith Ungol or whoever. Then again, given this group and especially this record’s obscurity, perhaps not, but the sonic evidence written in wax certainly excites some interesting speculation!

It’s inarguably an uneven listen when taken in its entirety and this probably played a part in this band returning to the dust from which they came, but the choicest cuts of Sir Lord Baltimore are certainly choice enough to deem it essential nonetheless. And as a public service announcement for any prospective Sir Lord Baltimore fans, this second album is often slapped together with the first one on certain re-pressings, eliminating the need for much hesitation on the matter and saving that precious shelf space, hopefully for something equally eccentric.

Review by DawnoftheShred, metal-archives.com

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