Sam Gopal - Escalator (1968 British Hard-Rock)

Late-period British psychedelia with snaky psychedelic-blues guitar lines, anguished vocals, a bit of an Eastern-folk bent to the melodies and a sheen of stoned mysticism to the lyrics. You have to be a very good group to pull this off well, and Sam Gopal were not very good; they were adequate, at best. Not terrible, but they definitely sound like a bill-filler, likely to be found as the opening band for much more interesting musicians in the U.K. in the late 1960s. The songs sound too similar to each other, but it is more low-key than you'd expect given Lemmy's later resume. Fave cut is "Midsummer Night's Dream," which puts the "You Really Got Me" riff to good use in a late '60s psych context (it sounds better than it reads). The CD reissue, taken from "original LP mixes," adds both sides of a non-LP single as bonus tracks.

AMG Review by Richie Unterberger