Warner Bros. Presents
Montrose

Joe Fernbacher, Creem, 1/76


In two previous pythonic displays of rampaging Robitussin-inflamed teenage sweat, Ronnie Montrose has established himself as the pontifex of the daycare center for the children of the grave. During the course of these rapacious odes to rock’n’roll Walpurgisnacht, he laid down a viscid set of fiercely blocked power chords tethered by a technocratic sensuousness, whose shamelessness went beyond the mere definition of “heavy metal” music and into the realms of vitreousness. However, on this foray into sonicology, he doesn’t quite grab the crystal with as much gusto as he did before, even though he does manage to sustain a certain level of gritty dissonance expected of all tertiary katzenjammers: which simply means the album gets a B on the old Ripple-o-meter!!!

Dancing outa his rock abattoir, Ronnie runs roughshod through the void with a Deep Purple intoned piece of purulence laconically tagged “The Matriarch.” Emblematic of all cosmic indolence and frenetic lyrical imagism, this song spills over the edge of the world into the heebee-jeebie hallucinatory world of Jim Starlin’s “Warlock” Marvel-books. Creeping along close behind is a necropolis mass transit commercial “Black Train” whose underlying deathblow guitar larceny is highly reminiscent of Savoy Brown’s “Hellbound Train” and Black Sabbath’s classic hymn to uselessness, “Into the Void.” The two nostalgia nuggets on the disc are the Eddie Cochran popularized “Twenty Flight Rock,” in which Ronnie’s less complicated roots are shown to best advantage, and “Dancin’ Feet” with its swirling guitar and infectious “For men only” backbeats. Overall this record satisfies, yet never really attains the promise of herpetophilia (a.k.a. snake-sex -- Ed.) found on the first Montrose LP and Paper Money.


(Thanks Joe. The first reader who can interpret and define every word in this review for us wins a free copy of the American-released reggae album of his or her choice. -- Ed.)

© Joe Fernbacher 1976
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