Label: Liberty (UK & Europe), 07243 584819 2 1
Style: Rock, Blues Rock
Country: England
Time: 64:39
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 400 Mb
Unlike other contemporary bands, economy of notes was not part of the Groundhogs agenda. On Split, more than any other Groundhogs album, they played in a shamanic whirling that shattered and scattered the beat around in several directions at once. The frenzied drumming of Ken Pustelnik reduced the kit to the role of moronic streetgang defenseless against one lone Kung Fu hero. Stun-guitars wah-wah’d and ricochet’d at random against concrete walls, leaving passers by mortally wounded but deliriously happy. Even Pete Cruickshank’s bass, that one remaining anchor, was no anchor at all, but a freebass undermining the entire structure. As McPhee explained in a Zigzag interview of the time: “[Ken] just wallops everything in sight and sometimes I lose him completely. Like I often come back in during a solo and can’t work out where he is — so I just have to play a note and let it feed back until I can find my way back in. And Pete doesn’t help either, because he’s all over the place and he follows me rather than Ken … so when we fall apart, we really fall apart.”
The brutal honesty of this quote showcases Tony McPhee’s determination to follow his muse to the end. His singing is confused and compassionate, dazed and un-macho at a time of hoot‘n’holler chest beating. And despite the wonder-fuelled strengths of Split’s first side, each song is reduced to the anonymity of mere numbers: “Split 1”, “Split 2”, “Split 3” and “Split 4”. Yet each is complete and each is anything but anonymous. The furious “Split 1” careers through its description of McPhee’s “suicidal derangement” as he termed it with murderous bass and wah guitar interplaying. “Split 2” de-tunes itself into awesome/awful life with a chasm guitar riff that snare shatters into a tearing riff account of McPhee leaping out of bed in black hole terror, before the floor of the room gives way and he ends: “I must get help before I go insane”.
(full version: headheritage.co.uk/unsung/album-of-the-month/groundhogs-split)
01. Split [Part One] (04:29)
02. Split [Part Two] (05:14)
03. Split [Part Three] (04:30)
04. Split [Part Four] (05:43)
05. Cherry Red (05:43)
06. A Year In The Life (03:15)
07. Junkman (05:02)
08. Groundhog (05:53)
09. Split [Part One] [Bonus Track, Live] (09:46)
10. Split [Part Two] [Bonus Track, Live] (06:17)
11. Split [Part Four] [Bonus Track, Live] (04:31)
12. Cherry Red [Bonus Track, Live] (04:10)
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