Ainulindalë album review

LP REVIEW:      ERU AND THE AINUR: "Ainulindalë"    (Arda Records)

     Ever since Eddie and the Hot Rods revived the popularity of the
"Bozo and the Bozettes" form of group name, the handles have just got
crazier and crazier. Now, hard on the heels of Adam & the Ants and
Rikki & the Last Days of Earth, comes Eru and the Ainur, as dippy a
bunch of time-warped weirdos as ever missed the last tube from Dingwalls
on a Thursday night.

     I suppose you would have to call this a "concept album" in the
Wakeman/Floyd vein; nothing less than a Creation Myth, for Chrissakes,
probably dreamed up over a few spliffs after the Old Grey Whistle Test;
most of these guys'n'gals have still got their heads in the grandioso
technoflash mid-Seventies, not a spikey top in sight. It's a big band,
sixteen strong, a kind of latter-day Chicago or CCS, though that's about
as far as the comparison goes. Each track on this pretentious platter
is a showcase for the talents of the leading members of the band, though
most of the writing credits go to frontman and founder member Eru "Illy"
Ilúvatar (I ask you, where do they dig 'em up ?).

     There's a fascinating mixture of musical styles, such as would
drive a record-shop assistant to the pill-bottle after trying to file
the thing. Most of the whole-band work comes across as rock/classical
fusion, a big orchestral sound with choirs and well-woven harmonies; but
the individual tracks vary from the howling hurricane brass and whistling
pipes of Manny Súlimo's wind section to the ponderous heavy-metal-zone
lobotomy of bassman Aulë's Zeppelinesque contribution to the second side.
Aulë's chick Yavanna (hope I'm getting these right) plays woodwind on a
home-and-harvest eco-freak Steeleyed track called "Ent Gonna Take No
More", while "Mandies" Namo puts down a doom-laden Van de Graaf moan-out,
and Irmo and Estë Lórien seem trapped in the acid-dream drop-one-and-
fly-me Sixties. A keyboards tickler called Ulmo churns out some fairly
wet moog-meanderings that sound like a bad night on Southend pier. "Al"
Daron Oromë plays horn on a remake of Free's "The Hunter", with some
suspiciously paedophiliac lyrics about finding Ilúvatar's children asleep
and luring them off somewhere. Come to think of it (scuzz'n'scam time)
who's the mother ? The only guy in the whole combo who seems to be
enjoying himself is t'Ulk, Astaldo, who beats the skins on a thankfully
beefy and good-humoured R'n'B/boogie track called (mysteriously enough)
"Doing the Nessa-sary".

     All is not hunky-dory in the studios, however; lead guitarist Mel
Kor is reportedly not happy with bossman Eru's domination of the song-
writing and group management, and has been telling interviewers recently
that he's going to find somewhere where he can express his own creative
talents more fully. Natch, the rumours are flying that a "musical
differences" split is in the offing, and one of the top sessioners with
the band, S. Gorthaur, told me that several of them would rather work
with Kor than under Illy. Mel himself is a mean and moody axeman, not
willing to toe the line, prone to muscle in on the other's tracks with
spontaneous, sometimes discordant breaks and solos. He's been into black
magic and the Crowley trip for some time now, á la Jimmy Page, and if he
gets out on the road with his bunch of heavies it'll be time to lock up
your daughters and bar the doors, 'cos this mutha is louder than Ted
Nugent and nastier than the Pistols. His track on this album, "The
Bauglir They Come The Arda They Fall", has got more street-life rock
'n'roll raunch on it than anything else on either side, and if they put
it out as the single, betcha it'll sellamillion.

                               Nick Shaar Parsons
                               (aka Brin Dunsire)