This is the album where Tony McPhee and the Groundhogs made a decisive break with the British blues boom, taking the music in a far more heavy and progressive direction. The difference between this album and its predecessor, Blues Obituary, are pretty stark. Even though in the long view the band never reached to the big leagues, they proved adept enough to move with the times.
Blues purists may shudder, but there is still enough blues-based music to go around here, especially on the second track, "Darkness Is No Friend", and pretty much all of the other songs keep at least one foot in some kind of blues progression. However the solos are turned way up and the lyrics more convoluted, though not quite to Jethro Tull proportions. The title track is a mini-epic of sorts. Some critics like to compare it to "Child In Time" by Deep Purple (due to the two bands sharing producer/engineer Martin Birch), but it's really its own animal: a poem and history lesson set to acoustic guitar in the first half, then a musical reinterpretation that shifts from a jaunty naive march into war into a chaotic amount of shredding, culminating in an explosion. While not my favorite track (which is the next one, "Ship on the Ocean"), it simply must be heard to understand the new side of the Groundhogs.
Some indication of where the band was headed in on display in the final three tracks, live cuts dating from 1970, 1971, and 1974. On each one you can hear the music getting more effect laden and McPhee's voice getting more raw. If that appeals more to you, check out the band's later albums: Solid, Black Diamond, and Crosscut Saw.
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