cHRiSgOEsROCk has had a rough six months or so. His earlier blog had a run in with some deleters eventually resulting in the sites permanent closure. And only about a month or so back, he returned with a new offering to internet geeks called Huddinge Hill – which is no doubt in reference to some esoteric music or place, but I have no idea what. Regardless of that, Huddinge Hill soon suffered roughly the same fate as Chris’ first site. But as many things can be said about bloggers, Chris seems to be rather persistent giving Huddinge Hills a go. And while the disc that’s cued up for the write up is from that second site, it’s good to see that Chris is back. Pay him a visit and learn something.

Prior to the demise of the original Huddinge Hill, cHRiSgOEsROCk posted a disc that bears a creepy cover reminiscent of some medieval knights preparing for a trouncing. I’d never heard of Goldenrod, but when the title of the post includes something like “(Rare Psychedelia US 1969),” I’m bound to pay attention. The band, only released a lone disc comprised of four tracks during its lifetime as a studio act, but the lineage of the trio - Ben Benay, Jerry Scheff and Toxey French – goes backwards and forwards into musics that most everyone is gonna be familiar with.

Beginning as session players in the Los Angeles area, the trio reportedly met while enlisted to back up the Fifth Dimension on their first two albums. Subsequent to that gig, the chemistry was such that the players felt it almost a necessity to continue performing together. And even more well known then Goldenrod’s own disc is an album the trio worked on by a Midwest transplant named Darius, which garnered some positive press at the time of its release and remains a coveted psych outing from the latter portion of the ‘60s.

The all instrumental affair, though that was the self titled Goldenrod album, though, appears distinct when compared to other outings that the trio had its hand in. Over the four tracks – which was doubled to eight on the re-release to include mono versions – the band moved in and around hard rock territory touching on a few spacey caveats of the genre. By and large though, this is a power trio. “The Gator Society” and its guitar solo provided by Ben Benay is ample proof of that. But where some might just think that this disc is a Cream knock off – it’s not. Impossible, though, it maybe to say whether this is better, Goldenrod assures listeners of its muscular proclivities at every chance. Coming up with a scant four songs to complete an album probably says that alone, but maybe not.

Goldenrod might be less acid inspired than some out and out hippie offerings of the time – and again rooted in the same concepts that made Cream or even Zeppelin so heavy – but the open space levied on listeners during the twelve minute, ridiculously titled “Karmic Dream Sequence” should please just about everyone.