ATOMIC ROOSTER
Atomic Rooster ESOTERIC
Proto-prog trio’s crunching 80s revamp remastered with extras and live set.
As the sleeve notes to this reissue of the 1980 comeback album point out, Atomic Rooster have always been a difficult band to classify. Rising from the ashes of The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown, they started life as a post-psych/protoprog power trio dominated by the late Vincent Crane’s virtuoso Hammond playing, pivoted towards gloomy hard rock on the wonderful Death Walks Behind You, then ended up stuck down a blues-soul blind alley. But when they reformed in 1980, just in time for the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, their sound had become distinctly metallic – singer/guitarist John Du Cann was now the main writer, and his songs were fuelled by a cartoonish punky energy. Atomic Rooster makes for a tuneful, enjoyable, if not exactly challenging album.