Flower Travellin’ Band - Anywhere

Flower Travellin’ Band at Myspace

The Flower Travellin’ Band was one of the first bands that was heavily influenced by Black Sabbath, and who helped established the earliest form of doom metal. Despite that fact, they’re not well known today, which is a shame, because they’re quite good. They were originally a cover band with a female vocalist called the Flowers, but they retooled themselves as the Travellin’ Band after she left. They broke up in 1973, but reunited recently and recorded an album, “We Are Here,” which was released just last month in Japan. I have decided to celebrate this by reviewing their first three albums.

Aside from the minute-long harmonica opener “Anywhere,” all the songs on the first proper Flower Travellin’ Band release are covers. Things start off with a lengthy cover of Muddy Waters’ Louisiana Blues. While the musicianship on display is fine, at nearly sixteen minutes, the jamming goes on too long for its own good. Next up is a cover of Black Sabbath’s self-titled song from their self-titled debut. It lacks the atmospheric lightning, rain and church bells that were at the beginning, but it’s still pretty good; I especially liked vocalist Akira Yamanaka’s delivery of the “OH GOD NO!!!” line, although his pronunciation of the English lyrics is about as poor as you’d expect (as well as in all the other songs). This is followed by a rendition of the traditional song “House of the Rising Sun”; this has an intro that goes on for too long, and the sparse arrangment with just an acoustic guitar and drums makes the song’s eight minutes seem even longer. I felt this was the worst song on the album. The album closes with King Crimson’s “21st Century Schizoid Man.” I have to say I liked the original version better with its screeching saxophone, but the Travellin’ Band’s cover is still quite good.

It was clear that the Flower Travellin’ Band had talent, but they hadn’t quite found their niche yet. Their artistic breakthrough wouldn’t come until their follow-up, Satori, which consisted entirely of original compositions. This album is still a decent effort, though, and it’s historically important because it contains what must be some of the first Black Sabbath and King Crimson covers ever recorded.