This record was something of an enigma -- apparently it never got distributed very widely even in England, where it was recorded and released, and was never officially issued in the United States. The band calls to mind early
Deep Purple (pre-Machine Head) in their style, while the record resembles the early progressive efforts of
the Moody Blues. This is a concept album built around the Ten Commandments, with each of the ten songs corresponding to a commandment -- it seems like a stretch today, in terms of an effort at reaching a mass audience, but one must remember that 1970 was the era of the original
Jesus Christ Superstar album.
Salamander take the concept and run with it most effectively, backed by some occasional orchestral accompaniment, but mostly the quartet pounding away, highly melodic and sometimes a bit heavy but always interesting. Dave Titley's guitar work isn't in
Ritchie Blackmore's league, but his voice is powerful and expressive, and it's surprising that we haven't heard more from him, and A.B. Benson's keyboard work was of at least the same caliber as Rick van der Linden of
Ekseption, or even
Jon Lord of this period, and he should have done more that would have been heard. ~ Bruce Eder