HELL PREACHERS INC./SUPREME PSYCHEDELIC UNDERGROUND E 356 (-68) GERMANY

There were many mysterious band names showing up on budget labels in the late sixties and early seventies...often hiding some one-off studio constellation and not offering much musical value even for a cheap price. This is an exception. A surprisingly well played hard rock psych album that gathered fans in Europe at the time and soon became surrounded by a rumour that it actually was a Deep Purple side project, or at least included Richie Blackmoore on guitar. As it turned out non of that was true. Instead it seems to have been recorded by an early setting of the band who later became Lucifer's Friend. However that may be it still stands as very good sixties psych. You get a couple of shameful rip-offs - "Time Race" is more or less a cover version of Deep Purple's "Wring That Neck" from Book Of Taliesyn and "Let Me Shoot You" very close to the Jeff Beck version of "Let Me Love You" that showed up on his Truth LP - but if you can live with those there's a lot further to take in for the lover of howling guitars, swirling organ and odd song structures. And it never turns humdrum, instead there are healthy variations. "Shalom" comes with an eastern flavour, "We Love The White Man" has chanting and mumbling to drums, "Turn Turn" like a raw hard rock Bo Diddley, "Spy In Space" stumbling spaced out with warped vocals, "Nirwana" filled with seemingly mindless shouting and organ. Listening through now I understand why some thought it'd be Deep Purple. The organ and guitars are there and though this is more psychedelic and the vocals are far from contemporary Rod Evans it's about the same feeling. This was the only album released under that band name. Issued on vinyl all over Europe and downunder at the time. UK on Marble Arch (MALS 1169). US 2013 CD on Gear Fab Records (GF 254) combined it with a one-off 1970 album by the UK band "Ugly Custard". Premiere German had label as shown here and thin glossy cover. (GÖXÄ*) (ÖGÄ*)