The power and the glory

Kingdom Come - Sir Lord Baltimore (1970)

In the early days when rock was still hardening, the power trio Sir Lord Baltimore erupted with an album boosting the frenzy to a new level. Losing their keyboardist before the album sessions even began did not faze the group in the least. If anything, the remaining three members amped up their own contributions in creating a debut, Kingdom Come, for the ages.

The name Louis Dambra has not entered the lexicon alongside contemporaries like Tony Iommi and Ritchie Blackmore, but as soon as the riff-deranged "Master Heartache", (90/100), begins, one realizes one is listening to something equally explosive. The guitar squeals and burns no less than those of the aforementioned, even harkening at times to Alex Lifeson of a soon-to-be-formed power trio. John Garner busts out thundering vocals all over the scale while laying down a bombastic beat.

Everything is turned up even farther on "Hard Rain Fallin'", (93), (http://www.mediafire.com/?7c4698di3h67g21). How the strings don't melt on the guitar solos at :51 and 1:59 is as much a mystery as why this album languishes in obscurity. Gary Justin rounds out the heavy brew with flourish, acknowledging his murky bass inspiration by way of Jack Bruce, from a recently disbanded power trio of his own.

A Morrison-esque "Fi-yuhh!" begins the next track, appropriately enough, "Lady Of Fire", (87). With swagger befitting such a histrionic album, this song eschews conventional structures of the day, (establishing hard rock conventions of the future), with schizophrenic guitars all over the place, even bouncing back and forth on stereo channels. One particular riff brings to mind one that Deep Purple would later use on their 1973 hit, "Woman From Tokyo". The maniacal vocals here conjure a twisted cocktail of Lemmy Kilmister and Uli Jon Roth.

"Lake Isle Of Inersfree", (86), is the only song on the album for which co-producers Mike Appel and Jim Cretecos do not share co-writing credit with Dambra. Appel, who played in The Balloon Farm which charted "A Question Of Temperature" in 1967, also wrote songs for The Partridge Family, and the would go on to co-produce Bruce Springsteen's first three albums. Cretecos also co-wrote for the Partridges and was around to co-produce the first two Springsteen efforts in 1973.

"Inersfree", however, is a definite departure from everything else on Kingdom. The regal tones of harpsichord open the song and are soon complimented by twelve-string acoustic. As such, it takes a moment or two to reorient oneself, but the song delivers. Building from lost love lament to a powerful "What's become of my life?" denouement, the drastic turn in mood leaves a bold impression. No overt thematic connection is apparent to W.B. Yeats' similarly-titled poem "Lake Isle Of Innisfree" (1888), or to the Dick Farrelly song, "Isle Of Innisfree" (1950), aside from yearning, but for very different things.

The gusto returns in short order as side one ends with "Pumped Up", (90). The band plays as though feeling the need to make up for having committed the atrocity of an acoustic number. This insanity is full-scale, from the shriek of Garner's knife-edge howl to the delirious rhythm, but made especially and utterly manifest when Dambra's guitar literally solos at 2:15, leaving even the rest of the band behind (perhaps in Inersfree?).

Side two begins with the thick and fat riff of the title track, "Kingdom Come", (94). Like all good epics of the early 70s, this song's got tall ships in danger, sirens, wizards and a phoenix to keep those parts of one's mind occupied which are not completely liquefied by the unrelenting onslaught of double-tracked guitar. Alternately sludge-fuzzy and trumpet-sharp, this song, with its suitably bold title, is nothing less than a proclamation of rock arrival.

"I Got A Woman", (82), is a wild tribute to one who "make(s) love real" for the narrator. There is a nice instrumental passage beginning at 2:17 with just the rhythm section. The guitar soon falls in with a fevered riff to embody the passion being sung about. That passion is even more pronounced in "Hell Hound", (88). The "born to the midnight" woman celebrated in this emphatic song has triggered an emotional outburst of volcanic proportions. In spite of the by-now familiar bluster, an enigmatic shroud is generated.

The next track is more straightforward. Two instrumental passages open "Helium Head (I Got A Love)", (95), (http://www.mediafire.com/?edkc82w8k2yof5r). The first, an ascending riff embellished by squeaks of molten guitar and crazy drum rolls, is later in the song entrancingly augmented with moans like the chants of Benedictine monks. It gives way to a more hyper passage before insatiable vocals finally enter at 1:01. "Helium" repeats this structure into a blistering coda that rages unrestrained until basically burning itself out, everything fading away but the drums.

The album then concludes with its shortest song, "Ain't Got Hung On You", (92). In no way less vehement, the guitars, vocals and drums scratch, rasp and hammer one more time, giving a sonically big album a deservedly big finish. Stunned listeners to this day are looking for the number of whatever just hit them.

CD reissues of Kingdom begin with the title track and the rest of side two before going back to side one. Reason for the switch is unknown but not unprecedented. The Seventy Sevens also transposed the vinyl sides when their 1984 album All Fall Down was finally released on CD.

Sir Lord Baltimore never rocked as hard as on this album. They released a self-titled successor the next year, but even adding Dambra's brother Joey with another guitar to the mix could not possibly reach Kingdom levels. Work on a third album was aborted by the band breaking up, but was eventually reworked lyrically and released independently in 2006 as Sir Lord Baltimore III Raw. While certainly worth a listen, even at its most rollicking, it too cannot realistically be expected to match one of the most raucous albums ever recorded.

Kingdom Come (album): 90/100.