Paul Kantner, Grace Slick, and David Freiberg collaborated on this pre-Jefferson Starship album called Baron von Tollbooth & the Chrome Nun; apparently Freiberg doesn't get a nickname. Ballad of the Chrome nun is a Quiksilver/Heart/Santana style of mystic tinged Latin blues rocker featuring Craig Chaquico' fluid wah wah, Fat is a mesmerising vocal performance and studio production as Grace Slick's witchy vocal slice and cut in sharply delivered sputters whilst being multi-tracked and given a slight phasing for a sky scraping tone; the multi-chorused, delayed country choral vocals, mellotron backing distantly make this a incandescent gem I love. Freiberg's Flowers of the Night is the typical SF sound of these artists as blues guitar and Hippy rousing folk rock mix with some strident harmonies and mellotron. Walkin is a delightful stretch of country rock as a truly ethereal violin comes across as a pop instrument while the banjo laced verses are an effective foundation for the group's melodic Hippy folk rock as the harmonies are as freewheeling as the country guitar and undulating tempo. Your Mind Has Left your Body begins with overdriven guitar and mournful pedal steel slowly waltzing with some piano turns, but the 'Riders of the Rainbow' mumbo jumbo lyrics and talk of "kissing the nearest sun" with such sobriety displays the worst of the Hippy music scene; though Slick's unchained vocals swaying and getting worked up with the mellotron, some cyborg synthesizer and Chaquico's syrupy guitar notes is fabulous.
Across the Board is another mellotron and driven tune with Grace up front with more countrified rhythms and thankfully less Hippy sentiments but more Female empowerment than airy-fairy, Flower Power astrology, some of the raw roars from Slick are priceless even if the song is a little explicit. Help Free Lament returns to dated 60s revolutionary rock over the better country mainstream rock of the other half of this album with the incredible high sandpaper coarse, sunshine pop harmony texture the only saving grace. White Boy has some mechanical guitar brooding, African drum work, faded backing vocals and some well executed suspense in a dark rock atmosphere while the medieval harmonies keep things in line with the mood; the ending warped guitar toque scrapes and screams are so Martian in their blistering tone. The darkness pervades the soulful Fishman, which while reminds me of Big Brother and Holding Company, the dripping wah wah guitar that emulates a Moog or Electric Sitar at times has the smooth squelch of a bullfrog, though the song practically peters out without going anywhere. A gong predictably kicks of Sketches of China but it soon becomes another hippy folk sing-a-long with pretty shallow messages that sound meaningful and thoughtful till they repeat it a hundred times over the course of the song.
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