Comus: First Utterance (1971)
One of the freakiest, scariest records you’ll ever hear -- guaranteed! -- Comus’ First Utterance presents the darkest facet of the late ‘60s’ British Folk Revival.
A genuine nightmare in musical form (starting with the disturbing cover art, drawn in ballpoint pen by band leader Roger Wootton), these largely acoustic, definitely progressive acid-folk trips spiked with flute, oboe, violin, and Indian percussion obey few traditional norms with their unpredictable, disconnected passages.
This is particularly true on ten-minute-plus excursions like “The Herald,” which pauses midway through for a stark flat-picking section of spine-shivering beauty, and “Drip Drip,” which, decades later, supplied Opeth with a title for their third LP, My Arms, Your Hearse:
“As I carry you to your grave, my arms your hearse.”
Which brings us to Comus’ lyrics, which obsess on the occult (“The Bite”), murder, insanity (“The Prisoner”), even rape, in the case of their (not surprisingly) ill-fated single, “Diana” -- though it probably went to No. 1 on the Hades Hit Parade.
And then there’s Wootton’s eerie vocals, which frequently declaim his demented rhymes in the nasal, mewling whine of some depraved woodland munchkin -- almost verging on the comical, except it’s so darn unsettling, especially when countered by haunting female backing vocals
This disorienting clash of beauty and terror pervades everything on hand (also see the sublime “Bitten”), and reflects the group’s chosen name, taken from the Greek god of revels and nocturnal dalliances; of excess, anarchy and chaos; a son and cup-bearer for Dionysus himself -- it’s all right there in “Song to Comus.”
So, I can pretty much promise that you’ll instinctively recoil in horror when first exposed to Comus’ jarring, unnatural sense of songwriting, but repeat listens (ideally interrupted by a few years’ rest) of First Utterance may eventually seduce the open-minded.
Or possess their souls, I dunno, so consider yourselves warned!
More Unsettling and/or Adventurous Music, Folk & Otherwise: Agalloch’s Pale Folklore, Tim Buckley’s Starsailor, Coven’s Witchcraft Destroys Minds & Reaps Souls, The Damnation of Adam Blessing’s The Second Damnation, Diamanda Galás’ The Litanies of Satan, Hammers of Misfortune’s The August Engine, Horslips’ The Táin, King Crimson’s In the Court of the Crimson King, Lord Buffalo's Holus Bolus, Negură Bunget’s ‘N Crugu Bradului, Opeth’s Ghost Reveries, Secos & Molhados’ Secos & Molhados, Sixteen Horsepower’s Sackloth ‘n’ Ashes, Today is the Day’s Temple of the Morning Star, Ulver’s Bergtatt.