Tear Gas - Tear Gas (24-bit remaster)
SKU
23-ECLEC 2664
“A newly re-mastered official CD release of the 1971 self-titled album by TEAR GAS. Formed in Glasgow at the close of the 1960s, the band featured Eddie Campbell (keyboards), Zal Cleminson (guitar), Chris Glen (bass, vocals), Gilson Lavis (drums) and Andi Mulvey (vocals).
Mulvey and Lavis were soon replaced respectively by keyboard player and vocalist David Batchelor, and Richard Monro. This line- up recorded the album “Piggy Go Getter”, in 1970. Some months later Hugh McKenna replaced Batchelor while his cousin Ted McKenna (ex-Dream Police) took over from Monro on drums.
This line-up of Tear Gas soon earned a reputation as a fine live act and the band’s self-titled second album was much stronger work than its predecessor, released in the UK on the Regal Zonophone label in 1971. Despite its excellence, the album failed to sell in significant quantities.
In August 1972 Zal Cleminson, Ted McKenna, Hugh McKenna and Chris Glen joined forces with vocalist Alex Harvey to form The Sensational Alex Harvey Band who would meet with success and record a series of inventive albums throughout the 1970s.
Thanks to the musician’s later work with SAHB, the Tear Gas recordings are now highly sought after by collectors. This edition has been re-mastered from the surviving master tapes and the booklet features a new essay and restores the original album artwork.”
“I can't believe I've gone so long without discovering this album. This is ridiculously heavy for 1971. Before I listened to this album, the reviews I read made me think that it was going to be "unoriginal" or "almost heavy metal". Those sentiments couldn't be further from the truth. First of all, you have to place this album's sound into context. The year of release was 1971! I realise that "heavy metal" exploded after Black Sabbath's early 1970 debut, but what most people don't take into account is that early 70's "heavy metal" was mostly as heavy as Grand Funk and Led Zep. Looking back, virtually all of those "heavy metal" bands were so light and bland that we remember them (rightfully) as plain hard rock. After doing a bit of filtering, you only get a handful of bands that were actually heavy enough to be heavy metal. Well, this is one of those few albums that rank right up there with Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Night Sun, and Bang (among several others) in terms of heaviness.”-rateyourmusic
- LabelEsoteric
- UPC5013929476646