666 | Loppylugs

Submitted by Neil Hornsey on 22 May 2016 - 8:37pm

Cover:

Artist:

Aphrodite’s Child

album-ID:

a_183

Nationality:

Greece

Year:

1 971

Release-year:

0000

Num-of-tracks:

Track-listing:

The System*Babylon*Loud, Loud, Loud*The Four Horsemen*The Lamb*The Seventh Seal*Aegian Sea*Seven Bowls*The Wakening Beast*Lament*The Marching Beast*The Battle Of The Locusts*Do It*Tribulation*The Beast*Ofis*Seven Trumpets*Altamont*The Wedding Of The Lamb*The Capture Of The Beast*∞*Hic Et Nunc*All The Seats Were Occupied*Break

Length-in-mins:

Nominator:

Bean

meeting-ID:

m_70

Now-num:

2 016

Spotify-URL:

4MB7X1urqItzKWFI73dyhb

Short-title:

666

nominator-ID:

u_13

Meeting-date:

Tuesday, 18 October 2016

MusicBrainz-URL:

9eb48d7e-2425-32d9-8d0b-54903d4a66be

Wikipedia-URL:

666_(Aphrodite's_Child_album)

Spotify-link-type:

album

Discogs-URL:

Aphrodites-Child-666/master/6200

Allmusic-URL:

6-6-6-mw0000501041

Musixmatch-URL:

Aphrodite-s-Child/6-6-6

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reviewers-IDs data

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76

reviewed by

Neil Hornsey

666

4-5-7

The mother of all psych-prog rock albums. It has everything; pop hits, rock grooves, sprawling prog nonsense, long sections of near silence, but most importantly of all shed loads of psychedelia. It's an album which kind of sums up the whole era/genre for me, but at the same time it's a very enjoyable listen. Particularly like the more inaccessible sections late at night after a few beers.
72

reviewed by

Glyn Lewis

Now comes the capture of the beast

3-7-15-24

2-17-21

An album from a time long forgotten – it fits neatly into the psychedelic / progressive rock crossover cubby-hole. It's very interesting as a document of those times, does it add anything beyond what expect of that period / genre, is my question. It’s sprawling, random, self-indulgent – these aren’t necessarily bad things and from this point in time and it does sound quite refreshing.There is a freedom for bands to go crazy around this time that is quite striking and exciting, looking back now. There are lots of theatrical ideas, sound effects and readings, which can be a bit of a laugh at times. There are also some tuneful, pop, rocky bits that just about keep it going although, to be frank, it is a bit indegestible in sections. And, with it being a concept album, the musical focus does shift about awkwardly sometimes.

I’m a fan of Vangelis, I’m not ashamed to admit. He is perceived nowadays as a bit of a staid, boring, film-score, dreary, bland, symphonic-electronics guy but having listened to followed some of his albums before he got that reputation I don’t see him like that. Some mid 70s albums rivalled Kraftwerk, at the time, for their stark electronic originality and pioneering approach. On this he does seem to be not obviously present for periods although, from my understanding, he is the driving force behind the majority of the composition. Aegian Sea is one that is in his typical styling and is perhaps the strongest piece, Altamount was another recognisably Vangelis sounding one, but this one I didn't enjoy so much. There is also quite a few ‘of the period’ rock guitar passages, but they are pretty strong and nicely played and do help to tie it together a bit, Battle of the Locusts and Do It were a couple of examples of more straight-ahead, guitar-driven rock pieces. As for Demis Roussos, his singing is hardly noticable, but apparently he is the bassist. Does anyone remember the Demis Roussos references from Abigail’s Party? “Are you a fan of Demis Roussos, Ange?“ Great stuff. But forgive me for disgressing.

It is a comparatively modern sounding thing, only Here and Now and Babylon I picked out as being obviously 60s rooted, however it never hits those ageless, transendent heights that other progressive bands managed soon after, I'm thinking of Pink Floyd and King Crimson offerings. All the Seats Were Occupied is the long ambitious piece where they could really express something and develop an idea and, having played this a number of times, I don’t really think there is much that really happens in that one, which I do think lets the album down, as that feels like it is really at the defining moment. Break finishes the album with a nice straight-ahead pop tune but don’t know how well that ties into rest of it.

Certainly an interesting thing to listen to nowadays and I'm glad to have had the opportunity.
68

reviewed by

Richard Norbury
62

reviewed by

Sian Thomas

The musicianship on this album is wonderful. If it wasn't for the singing I'd have loved it, but I hated the earnest lyrics. I was desperate for someone to make a joke to disrupt the seriousness of the whole thing.

I pictured the singer. He had bare feet, his toenails were too long and he'd driven all his friends away by going on incessantly about the Beast. The band tolerated him because he was the one with the money. He'd paid for the tour bus and was part-funding the record. At some point they'd got together without him, probably over a pint of Watneys, and had decided they should stick together and would play until their muscles screamed: 'It will be worth it,' one of them said, 'for we are prog and prog is God.'