The Sensational Alex Harvey Band “Next” 1973. Joe’s been in DC for work this past week but during some free time he’s been checking out area record stores and record shows so I’ve been getting random texts (and photos of him crate digging) asking if we have this or that album in our collection.

I realized the collection had gotten a bit out of hand when he asked me to look for something I’ve never heard of only to discover we have three albums by the band. That would, in this case, be the glam/hard rock/cabaret mashup The Sensational Alex Harvey Band so I chose the oldest one we have – their second LP Next. From their Wiki entry: “The Sensational Alex Harvey Band was one of the most unconventional bands that were part of the 1970s glam rock era. Fronted by Alex Harvey accompanied by Zal Cleminson on guitar, bassist Chris Glen, keyboard player Hugh McKenna and drummer Ted McKennatheir music veered from progressive rock to experimental jazz, around a core of experimental and avant garde rock, dealing with themes from environmentalism to chinese take away food. While they achieved an almost legendary status in the UK, they struggled to make a huge impact in the USA.” Two of the singles from Next were released just in the UK, the 50′s-style rocker “Giddy Up A Ding Dong” and “The Faith Healer.” “The Faith Healer” became a hit in England; it’s a “creepy tale of a religious con artist that blends an intense vocal from Harvey with a thunderous, guitar-driven wall of sound production.” (Allmusic) It’s a fairly epic track, running over seven minutes, and at times reminded me a lot of current psych rockers King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard (who I’m much more familiar with). The single “Swampsnake” was a US-only release which Allmusic calls “a frenzied reading of a ribald Jacques Brel tune that effectively pits Harvey’s anguished wail against lovely orchestrations.”