Pearls Before Swine - Balaklava

ESP-Disk records

Very rarely has the anti-war message been captured on entire sides of wax, and even rarer still are the instances where it has been able to captivate so wholly as it does on Pearls Before Swine's "Balaklava".

Despite how many artists have dedicated the majority of their career to promoting pacifistic ideals, the songs, more often then not, lack the distinct subtlety of those found on "Balaklava". And while the no-holds-barred, occasionally aggressive approach of other artists has given us some of the greatest protest songs of the past sixty-odd years, a little delicacy can go a long way.

Everything in this album feels particularly deliberate--there wasn't a creak of a floorboard that wasn't first thought out. Each song carries its own grounded, earthy energy with it, complimented by an impressively creative use of percussion to build semi-avant garde soundscapes that, when you dig into them, only reveal themselves to go even deeper.

Tom Rapp's wavering, wickery, old world voice gives the songs an almost ghostly quality that makes the band sound wise beyond their years. A refreshing incorporation of more traditional American folk formalities amidst the heady, over-saturated psychedelia of the time tips the scales in the band's favor, but they aren't immune to throwing off the balance. "Suzanne" is too steeped in the psychedelic stew for it to be an effective rendition of the Leonard Cohen classic, and "There Was A Man" falls back so far into the old traditionals that it sounds more so like a Chad Mitchell Trio tune.

Even with the two menial cuts, the album is considerably well paced. Each song is allowed to grow and bloom in their own time, not a one feeling too slow or too short. The record is so chock full of these little subtleties, these forgotten treasures you can catch little glimmers of from behind cupboards and below beds that each time you listen to it you'd hear something different.

A degree of antiquity permeates. Tales are told through the eyes of the Victorian era, the turn of the century. Rapp uses your own sense of nostalgia against you, to get you down, to settle between your ribs and go for the kill while he sits back on his heels and stares at the mirror, waiting for an answer.

Our closer, "Ring Thing", is the most conventionally psychedelic cut of those featured, drawing influence from the heavier tunes by Blue Cheer or Black Sabbath--or even Kaleidoscope. Through it we receive a masterfully conveyed sense of relenting unease, a lead weight that has settled itself in your gut and knows your fate. It is burdened with the knowledge of the inevitability of war, the fear inherent in it, of knowing it's all too late. Your mind is desperately trying to come up with meaning in something never meant to have a purpose--the constant loop, the snake eating itself.