Sex (1970) Come, Wake Up - LOST 70s GEMS

This is a Canadian Power trio called Sex who have a very Detroit sound ala MC5, Frost and The Amboy Dukes, a tough sound made up of bluesy hard rock guitar and very trembly bass and tight drumming. The vocals of Scratch My Back have a blank feel married with excellent drumming and a funky blues guitar style like Clapton with some wobbly string bends. Not Yet is filled with piercing lead guitar that goes from blues to Medieval sounding scales before the track proper kicks in and later highlights a superb bass only section. The sound maybe an onslaught but it is recorded pure and clean for maximum effect, the title and the cover of three long haired hippies running shirtless through a wheat field is not really indicative of the music within, it is an amusing representation of it's time. 

 The pile-driving beat and use of drawling wah wah particularly strong if nothing special, their trippy blues lyricism was no competition for The Stooges or Deep Purple. there is a fourth member, Pierre Ouellette who contributes flute to a few tracks like the Peruvian folk middle section to the Deep Purple sounding,monolithic speed rocker Come, Wake Up which features the slowed shuffle Ian Paice would use, the robotic rhythm chords, meowing eastern blues lines and endless legatos of Blackmore. The harmonica blues of Try with it's cowbell mixed upfront sticks out as does the low down dirty blues licks of Yves Rousseau's wily blues rock guitar. Night Symphony has the singer and bassist Robert Trepanier singing an Ian Gillan spritely vocal line as the band again goes down the Deep Purple brand of funky blues, Speed Metal, classical vamping and frankly instrumental 'jerking off' which now explains the title as there isn't much spirit to the performance. Its all monolithic blues full of ballast and instrumental efficacy but no real depth, worse there is a song called I Had to Rape Her buried under a lot of noise and distortion but at least I found out what was on this provocatively named album and group, not much originality.