Peacepipe - Peacepipe (Reissue) (1968-73/2002)

Peacepipe were the brainchild of guitarist John Uzonyi. They were a power trio that played Southern California and Arizona in the late '60s. They released a single during their existence, and also cut this album, which remained unreleased until the mid-'90s. Originally released on Rockadelic on vinyl only, Shadoks has now reissued it on compact disc, remastered from the original tapes. If you're into heavy psych guitar, you really need to hear this album. Uzonyi has a monstrous tone on guitar, similar at times to Jimi Hendrix's feedback dive-bombing, but the two have very different playing styles. Uzonyi is aided by drummer Gary Tsuruda and keyboard player Rick Abts, but the show belongs to Uzonyi. There are at least two guitars present most of the time, Uzonyi is the singer, and he most likely plays the bass tracks as well. The material ranges from superheavy guitar insanity to more poppy material. To be honest, Uzonyi's lyrics and vocals are nothing to write home about (especially the awful lyrics to "Angel of Love"), but his guitar playing saves the day. There's no studio trickery to speak of (except for the weird tremolo vocals on the last track), although engineer Eirik Wangberg did a masterful job of capturing what Uzonyi was trying to do, and came up with a great, dynamic mix and fun stereo panning effects. The album sounds of its day, but some of the guitar playing still sounds inventive. Shadoks specializes in releasing unknown, obscure material, and they've dug up a great one here.