Quicksilver (1971) Don't Cry My Lady Love - LOST70sGEMS

The Quiksilver Messenger Service's sixth album starts off with a stunning dual guitar harmony that is so fresh while the vocals are Dylanesque and heavily reference the mid 60s anthem Eve of Destruction but reversing it with a positive message. The guitar lines though are so rockin yet sweet in their clean sustain, I Found Love starts with a funky drum break ripe for hip hop sampling and some fantastic guitar and piano chops; free flowing bursts of juicy tangled guitar wails over boogie woogie piano notes and under serene Seals and Crofts style harmonies. Song for Frisco is a distant chamber reverbed tune that continues the phenomenal guitar shredding,

While Rebel is the most memorable tune with sharp scream sound effects, an outlaw tale set to ragged vocals and acoustic guitars and some delayed backing vocal echoes..vocelechoes, the formidable fuzz guitar in the distance and more crazy yelping and yahooing from some unhinged cowboys. Fire Brothers follows on with it's dramatic mix of ghostly layers of piano playing single notes while another plays a complex run of notes up and down a scale while the Freieberg's heavy vocal also is back echoed to ping back and forth just like the up and down repeats of the piano like an endless loop as he journey further into insanity on this trippy yet restrained record. To complete this trilogy of mind-altering echo driven Folk Rock songs is Out of my Mind with some galloping bass and machine gun tambourine and astral acoustic guitar chords recorded so close to the mic each fifth rings out wide in the earphones. Play My Guitar is just generic blues wailing and dated talk like 'diggin you' but the excellent flawless mixing and playing is still present if none of the fresh melodies of other tracks.

The Truth features a shapeshifting wah wah distorted guitar that wraps around the acoustic beats, it's clangy and still very 60s sounding but with 70s sonics, pretty much how the album feels as the flower power chorus has that bright yet sleepy yearning feel of the hippie era. Don't Cry My Lady Love has a great countrified pop feel with a downhome bop, Southern clipped accents and happy go lucky acoustic strumming, it's a shame the melancholic vocals and deep echo and piano track swamp the potential mainstream appeal but remains as melodic and fresh as this band would possess across their early 70s output. The ghostly honky tonk piano solo is pure elegiac beauty like an old timey film or sepia toned nostalgia.