One of those albums where I go through UMR saying "Didn't I write about this already"? This album was a great revelation for me when I first pulled a used copy out of a Lubbock record store, while still in college in the middle 80s. I had no idea what a great hard rocker it was. To this day, few seem to acknowledge that Armageddon was largely an extension of Steamhammer, and some of these compositions were first tried out on their final Speech album. Though for sure adding Keith Relf to the mix will change that dynamic greatly. Even though I love the hard driving rock here - and it definitely has a progressive minded component - it never seems to transcend the Gnosis 11 mark for me. I don't feel this album in the same way I do the all-time hard rock greats. Maybe it was too professional, and lacks the small club-like grit the genre calls for. Regardless, Armageddon is an album I'll keep to the end.
Ownership: LP: 1975 A&M. Single sleeve. Recent acquisition (2021) from a Denver record show. This replaced the CD that replaced the copy mention above from Ralph's Records in Lubbock (1985).
1985; 2/19/23 (LP 4.10); 4/12/23 (new entry)
No comments:
Post a Comment