Ten Years After - Watt (1970)

Charts: Australia #13, UK #5; U.S. #21.
Not exactly 'burnout', but a really disappointing album. Blame it on the heavy touring, though - creatively the guys are still there. But they just didn't have enough time or forces, and Watt is an obvious lightweight toss-off to satisfy the record company and the fans. Musically, there are no advances over Cricklewood Green here, and the atmosphere is quite similar: same sharp riffing, grim atmosphere and angry pissed-off vocals, although in general the mood is a little lighter, simnply because the songs are clearly underdeveloped in every respect and they just didn't have the opportunity to tighten up the production. Or the lyrics - does their catalog of texts contain a line more stupid than 'baby don't you cry don't you cry you shouldn't do that'?
Obviously, they suffer from lack of material; whatever the hell for else should they have put 'Sweet Little Sixteen' from their 1970 Isle Of Wight gig at the end? I mean, it comes off pretty well - fast, furious and driving - but this ain't a live album, so why bother? It doesn't work at all in the context of the album, and it ain't all that interesting musically, just a bunch of power chords and generic Berry-licks. If they were really so deeply bothered, they should have put out the entire Wight gig instead: if you consult the Message To Love video, you'll see Alvin doing a pretty nifty live version of 'I Can't Keep From Crying' on there, with speedy solos, sonic gimmicks and everything that's his trademark style. 'Sweet Little Sixteen' is just unrepresentative.
And if we don't count the short acoustic-driven instrumental link 'The Band With No Name' which sounds like it's been taken directly from an average movie soundtrack (sounds very close to whatever Danny Kirwan was penning for Fleetwood Mac at the time - pleasant, but unsubstantial folk-pop), there's only six songs on here, most of them extended well beyond the expected and necessary running time. That's my main complaint, in fact, because the main melodies themselves are more or less good and show that Alvin's songwriting talents were slightly on the rise (and would reach the apex on the next album); he'd also begun experimenting with complex song structure, not being too successful here but at least laying the ground for more effective things to come.
Highlights include some fascinating new riffs, particularly on the opening track, 'I'm Coming On'. Unfortunately, it's exactly the tune I was referring to when I mentioned the crappy lyrics, but the melody rules, even if essentially it's just a slight stylistic re-write of 'Good Morning Little Schoolgirl'. 'My Baby Left Me' (which has nothing to do with the Presley classic) is also interesting, a funny mixing of soul with country-rock, but doesn't come across as particularly memorable. Instrumentation-wise, the weirdest and most innovative number on the record is 'I Say Yeah', a rather generic rocker that is nevertheless distinguished by a frightening synth solo, if only I'm not actually confounding it with a guitar plugged through some infernal device. Whatever it is, it sounds great and must have been completely awesome for people at the time: in 1971, not too many people were doing such brave things with synthesizers. ELP, for the most part; and it's not a coincidence that the instrumental section on 'I Say Yeah' reminds me a lot of Emerson's synth jam on 'Aquatarkus'. Come to think of it, it does sound like a guitar playing rather than a keyboard instrument, so it must have been something similar to the super-weird wah-wah effect that Pete Townshend used the same year on 'Going Mobile'. In other words, keep your heads down low, folks, and prepare for the electronic onslaught....
There's also an interesting 'progressive-emulating' epic here ('She Lies In The Morning'), and it shares the same flaw: parts are good (main melody this time), parts are unbearable (the chaotic jam in the middle that's a little reminiscent of the Stones' psychedelic debauchery on Satanic, but doesn't contain any cool spacey sound effects and becomes boring from the very first second). But generally, all of these new riffs and melodies wear thin on repeated listenings, and almost none of them manage to imprint themselves in my memory, mostly because it's all been done better before. You know you're in trouble when one of the most memorable efforts on a Ten Years After record actually turns out to be an 'ugly' synth-style-guitar solo.
Still, I rate this record a point higher than I should be rating it, mainly for the fact that it includes 'Think About The Times' - one of Alvin's most beautiful ballads ever, slightly reminiscent of 'Circles' but even better. It may be naive, and the lyrics childish, but the way he sings the lines 'You are living/You are in the world' is simply charming. Not that he seems to be a very emotional guy - he's really built for speed (ahem, both literally and figuratively). But this is one of a couple of times when he somehow gets to really demonstrate his emotions. Good work, Mr Lee! The ground is thus prepared for their best studio album ever, which would come out the same year. Hey, how can it be possible to combine a two-albums-per-year schedule with heavy touring? Why, by making the first one of the two a duffer and the second one a winner, of course.
(starling.rinet.ru/music/tenyears.htm#Watt)