God's Clown - Ocean
1976 - Crypto(France) LP
1998 - Mantra(France) CD
- Robert Belmonte / vocals
- Georges Bodassian / guitars, synthesizers, vocals
- Noel Alberola / bass, vocals
- Alain Gouillard / drums
1. Sunny Day
2. Strange Rain
3. Love Is Blind
4. The Loneliness Of The Long Distance
5. From Death To Life
6. Fields Of Pain
7. The Juggler
8. With The Sound I Can Escape
Stumbled across this album about a month ago on the net and D/L it as both the LP and the CD are rare and very expensive as it's only been released in France where this band originates. Blazing progressive hard rock/heavy psych with the glitter of glam. Comparisons are made to Led Zeppelin. Really I don't hear that much as I hear more somewhat of a sound and style of former Fleetwood Mac's guitarist/vocalist Bob Welch's band Paris and the 'B' supergroup hard rock band Detective with vocalist Michael Des Barres, Tony Kaye from Yes, Michael Monarch from Steppenwolf with Sugarloaf's bassist Bobby Pickett. King Crimson an obvious influence as is Caress Of Steel from Rush.
Vocalist Robert Belmonte, again comparisons to Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant, Geddy Lee from Rush and David Surkamp from Pavlov's Dog are somewhat warranted but Canadian AOR hard rockers Streetheart's vocalist Kenny Shields is a better comparison IMO. Belmonte's vocals can be abrading at times with his feminine, shrieking style though there is no doubt he has a varying range vocal style. However he's not the show, it's guitarist/keyboardist Georges Bodassian. Not your typical mid '70's hard riffs but more in the style of the technical complexities of Robert Fripp as is some of the time sig shifts and wild wah wah solos throughout the album.
This stuff is heavy as in "it makes your ears bleed".
