Charisma were a band from the Hartford, Connecticut area, and were
very typical of the confused American year of 1970. I speak of this
often, and it basically means that bands were throwing any and
everything against the wall hoping it would stick - or in practical
terms - obtaining radio airplay. And Charisma falls in line with their
mix of blues, hard rock, progressive, psych, and old fashioned rock and
roll. It's a mess basically. But some of these albums had gems in the
midst of the ordinary, and that's where we come in. Charisma has a
strong Hammond organ and overall keyboard presence, and there are a
couple of tracks that display this in an instrumental progressive rock
format ('Street Theatre', 'Ritual Dance of the Reptiles'). There are
other very good proto-prog/bluesy numbers in 'Leopold's Ghost' and 'The
Age of Reptiles'. The rest is take it or leave it...
... And then
there is the title track. Believe me folks, it is worth the price of
the CD just for this piece of mesmerizing insanity. Sounding like a most
incongruous meeting between Comus, Uriah Heep, Stark Reality, and
Funkadelic - a bizarre kindergarten story made for the Public
Broadcasting Service on LSD. Whoa. I wasn't ready for that. Amazing.
Personal collection
CD: 2008 Wounded Bird
The CD on Wounded Bird states a 1970 copyright date, and this is
corroborated on Discogs. Typical bare bones CD from Wounded Bird, with
lyrics for 4 of the 5 tracks and album credits. Sure would like to know
the story behind the title track...
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