Red side of the moon

Moon Blood - Fraction (1971)

If you're only going to release one album in your career, it might as well be emphatic. Out of the late-60s Los Angeles scene came Fraction and while they dropped only one vinyl testament to their existence, Moon Blood remains a hard rock legacy.

Many liken Fraction unto the Doors. Working in the same era and territory, there are certainly points of similarity, but it is perhaps too easy a comparison to draw and likely made primarily on vocalist Jim Beach's Morrisonesque delivery. A major disparity in sound comes with Fraction's lack of keyboards, and a particularity in subject matter with the book of Revelation.

One realizes Fraction is a guitar-driven band from the first rugged solo at 1:56 on the album opener, "Sanc-Divided", (85/100). Stabbing through the guitars, Beach's guttural growl ponders sacrifice as if a hippie Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Perhaps history itself answers the song's rumination: "wondering when the spirit moves me, if I will obey ... will you cast away your fame?"

"Come Out Of Her", (88), somehow only intensifies the shadows. In a word, this song is haunting. The vocals leer then let loose, the guitars slow burn with wah, while the bassline conjures Jack Bruce at his Cream murkiest. The lyrics, as on the album whole, are poetic, vivid words on a desolate landscape. When urged to "extend your thumbs and burn the darkness of her", I am more than ready to hitchhike out of Babylon.

The apocalyptic "Eye Of The Hurricane", (90), lives up to its title. The vocals rage above reverberating guitars and explosive drum fills as "fiery faces [send] judgment." Like any storm, there's a calm and peaceful middle section "in the brightness of His coming" before the swooping and swirling guitar carnage begins once again. Amidst the devastation, the will to overcome overrides defeat and, along with Sabbath-esque riffage, brings the song to a sensational conclusion.

"Sons Come To Birth", (88), gives listeners a chance to catch their breath, opening with a stripped back meditation on moving spirits, desert wanderings, grace and true freedom. It doesn't take long for the guitars to come out, though, with some beautiful subdued fretwork by Don Swanson.

Finally, Moon Blood culminates in "This Bird (Sky High)", (87). "This Bird" might be the best Doors song the Doors never wrote, complete with rambling groove and mandatory mid-song poetry recital, (an albeit brief one). The "Sky High" portion, (http://www.mediafire.com/?77vgalj6gcp1v9h), beginning around 4:40, is the sound of pure jubilation. While short on lyrics, the vigorous guitars convey the triumphant acclaim more energetically than mere words ever could.

Alas, despite evident distinction, it yet proves difficult to listen to Moon Blood without making allusion to the Doors. That being said, this album then must come from an alternate universe where Jim Morrison traded Ray Manzarek for God. Of course, as usual, the experience is most rewarding coming to it on its own terms and this album can certainly stand boldly by its own merits.

The 1999 Rockaway CD reissue adds three bonus tracks to the mix: "Prisms", which, with its soft reflection building to fuzzy climax and back again, would not have been out of place on the original album itself; the enigmatic "Dawning Light", which never quite seems to find itself harmonically; and the straightforward rocker, "Intercessor's Blues", which, while the hardest of the trio, is also the most roughly recorded and preserved.

Moon Blood (album): 87/100.