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Arthur Brown/Kingdom Come: Kingdom Come (1972)  
Reviewer: Ben Miler | See all reviews by Ben Miler
Section: Reviews | Category: Music | Area: UK | Topic: Music  
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1971's Galactic Zoo Dossier, Arthur Brown's first album with his new band Kingdom Come proved that he still had more great material to give us. So a year later, he decided to record a second album, called Kingdom Come. By this point VCS-3 synthesizer player Julian Paul Brown and bassist Desmond Fisher left, replaced by new bassist Phil Shutt. The rest of the band at this point consisted of Arthur Brown on vocals, of course, guitarist/vocalist Andy Dalby, keyboardist Michael "Goodge" Harris, and drummer Martin "Slim" Steer.

This album is usually regarded as perhaps the weakest of the three of the Kingdom Come albums, but actually it isn't all that bad. It's just that it does have a couple of throwaway songs, but the rest of it is fine, although a notch below anything on Galactic Zoo Dossier or their followup Journey.

The album starts off with "Water", which is doesn't start off so encouraging, but by the end, the Mellotron makes its first appearance (something you'll hear much more on their following album, Journey, where American-born Victor Peraino used plenty of it). Luckily the album gets better with the wonderful ballad "Love is a Spirit" and the ever eccentric "City Medoly". A lot of this stuff can get pretty unpredictable, especially the second half of "City Medoly".

Perhaps the most absurd song on this album is "Experiment". Parts of this song sounds a little bit like Emerson, Lake & Palmer, where there's another part where Andy Dalby does the singing and it ends up sounding a bit like Traffic's "40,000 Headmen". Then Arthur Brown starts talking about bowel movements with the sound of someone having diarrhea. I could hardly believe I heard something that crude, not even Frank Zappa could think of something that crude in his music.

That last song, "Hymn", when my mother heard it, she thought it sucked, she said that it was sappy. Let's put it this way: it's definately not the album's high point, as it's a lot more pop-oriented than the rest of the album. Little wonder why this album got a bad rap, but don't let the naysayers prevent you from getting this album, because aside from "Water" and "Hymn", the rest of this album just fine. Of course, if you're new to Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come material, start with Galactic Zoo Dossier or Journey first.

More Info

- Arthur Brown: vocals
- Andy Dalby: guitars, vocals
- Phil Shutt: bass
- Michael Harris: organ, piano, electric piano, VCS-3 synthesizer, Mellotron
- Martin Steer: drums

Related Link: Arthur Brown webpage
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Visitor Comments about Arthur Brown/Kingdom Come: Kingdom Come (1972)
Posted by HPQP on 2005-10-28 19:24:32
My Score:

Comment: Having seen Arthur (and Kingdom Come) perform loads of times, from 1971 to this week, this album is pretty hard to weigh up. At the time of its release, I thought it was great. The Traffic Light sequence was pretty central to the stage act, and the fans certainly loved the whole thing, ebvn if they didn''t have a clue what it was all about! Arthur did ''Love is a spirit'' on stage this week, it''s a great song. I''m a real Goodge Harris fan, and his keyboard work is relatively restrained here, not so powerful as on the Galactic Zoo Dossier album. In fact, the whole thing is a bit like that, not quite ''wild'' enough. But there are some great passages; The Hymn is very good, with almost endless variations by Andy, The Whirpool is excellent...indeed, listing them like that, they''e all good! But there''s just that feeling all the time that something''s missing, somehow. Worth buying, though. And rumours of a Kingdom Come gig for 2006!

Posted by wollyguitars on 2005-07-25 13:36:53
My Score:

Comment: I totally with HAPPYDOG whilst adding that Andy Dalby''s guitar solo on the hymn is one of the most lyrical solos I have ever heard and ranks as one of my all time favourites.

I am only sorry that at the recent Arthur Brown show in the Kingdom Come section they did not play the hymn.

Posted by Happydog on 2004-09-28 07:56:59
My Score:

Comment: This is really a little lost classic of an album. The Zappa comparisons are somewhat apt, as this album is as fragmented and demented as anything Zappa ever did. The difference is of course Arthur''s tremendous singing, and the fact that, unlike Zappa, Brown has a more compassionate and much less cynical take on the human condition. The entire band is excellent, and special note should be taken of Andy Dalby''s guitar playing.

The Voiceprint CD version of this album (as well as the dreadful Swiss bootleg version) has the song titles completely wrong. The correct running order is:

The Teacher
A Scientific Experiment (featuring Colonic Irrigation)
The Whirlpool
The Hymn
Water
Love is a Spirit
City Medoly
Traffic Light Song

Strangely enough, the songs themselves on the CD are in proper running order, but the titles are completely wrong. This has been corrected on the Sanctuary/Castle CD re-release, which has also been remastered for better sound. All three of the Kingdom Come CD''s have now been issued on Sanctuary/Castle in much better versions, and with original cover art.

The "colonic irrigation" segment lasts a little less than a minute and is terribly funny; I see this as a tribute to one of Arthur''s influences, Screamin'' Jay Hawkins, who released (so to speak) the equally scurrilous "Constipation Blues," a song Brown was undoubtedly familiar with. I would hope that others would not be put off from the superior trippiness of this wonderful album by one minute of fecal frivolity!

I have to admit that although this is considered the least of the Kingdom Come albums, I have a great fondness for it, and Arthur performs "Love is a Spirit" to this very day in concert. I feel that this is definitely worth adding to one''s collection of Hippie Music, especially if you have a taste for progressive rock, psychedelia, and good old fashioned craziness.

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