Monday, February 1, 2016

Toad - 'Cottonwood Hill' from Toad (1971)

Toad were in Brainticket, who did an entire album called Cottonwood Hill in the same year of 1971, and that album is a pastoral psychedelic nightmare acid caravan to madness. It is awesome. But Toad's album is also really awesome, but earthier, more burrow-grounded. Cottonwood Hill is a magickal place where one, if aided, can become a bird flying in the sky, or one with the sky itself, or what lay beyond the sky, while nestled within the warmth of the earth and the flowers. The whole of Toad's initial album is really great, heavy-heavy-blues proto-metal from Switzerland. Produced by Martin Birch, who also produced Deep Purple, Wishbone Ash, Dio, Sabbath, BOC, Maiden, etc. It has an organic density rare in 1971, and is an album I return to frequently. Unsurprisingly, Nurse With Wound are really big fans of 'Cottonwood Hill' and Brainticket, and did their own version of the song in 1984. It does not sound much like Toad's version, but feels somewhat the same.

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