Review: Comus – First Utterance (1971)

First Utterance is the first studio album by British artist Comus. Comus was formed in 1969 as a folk duo by two guitarists Roger Wootton and Glenn Goring. By the time of their debut album, the band had expanded to a six-piece line-up including bassist, percussionist, violinist, wind player and female vocalist Bobbie Watson who shared vocal duties with Wooten. As a trivia fact, David Bowie was an early Comus fan who often attended the band’s gigs and in fact Comus played a few gigs as Bowie’s opening act. And according to Wooten at least, band did it’s job all too effectively because Bowie cancelled the gigs they had already agreed to do together for fear of being overshadowed by Comus…

Recorded in October 1970 and released in February 1971, First Utterance is a boisterous mix of progressive rock, psychedelia and folk. The album’s music is full of haunting violin parts, dissonance and primitive-sounding rhythms that paint a picture of some kind of dark pagan rites.

The package is crowned by macabre lyrics dripping with violence, rape and electric shock therapy, bellowed by band leader Roger Wootton in his distinctive voice, often with a slightly sheep-like vibrato. Wootton’s voice somewhat resembles that of Family vocalist Roger Chapman, but Wootton sings higher than Chapman and occasionally uses a falsetto voice.

Lighter and more beautiful tones are provided by the band’s high-pitched female vocalist, who is prominent, especially on the beautiful 12-minute ”The Herald”, the longest track on the album, but also provides Wootton with effective backing on other tracks.

First Utterance does not use an actual drum kit at all, but instead uses various hand drums and other assorted percussion tools as rhythm instruments. The electric bass also provides occasional support, but several songs go on for long stretches without it, driven only by 6 and 12 string acoustic guitars, which in places recalls the atmosphere of Genesis’ Trespass album. In general, Comus’ guitars sound dirtier and more twisted than Genesis’, as exemplified by the dissonant strumming of the intro of the third track ”Drip Drip”.

The most delicious tracks on the album are the maniacally furious opening track ”Diana” with its hand drum solo and the fast-paced and intense ”The Bite” which features the hanging of Christians as Colin Pearson wails demonically on his violin in defiance of his classical music training. 11 minute ”Drip Drip” is also stunning in all its deliberate ugliness. Opening with jagged, piercing guitar chords, the track grows into an epically lurid ballad of violence about a murder with an dark erotic twist in the gloomy forest:

I’ll be gentle I’ll be gentle
I’ll be gentle I’ll be gentle
I’ll be gentle I’ll be gentle I’ll be gentle I’ll be gentle
And not hurt you and not hurt you
And not hurt you na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na…

promises choruses in ”Drip Drip”, but the song does cut the listener in the same way that the knife eventually cuts its target in the story of the lyrics. ”Drip Drip” is a song whose deranged music perfectly supports the lyrics. The same is true to some extent of ”Song To Comus” which starts off playfully bouncy, but turns into a hauntingly dark and brooding tale of the Greek mythology of the lewd god of excess, Comus, ”toying” (read: raping) with a human woman. It is not necessarily a coincidence that the album ends with the last track ”Prisoner” with repeated cries of INSANE INSANE INSANE INSANE…

First Utterance is an extremely original dose of brutal acoustic music the likes of which have never been heard before. The absolute star of the album is Roger Wootton, who sings with a truly committed and frenetically deranged sound that at its best makes even Van Der Graaf Generator’s Peter Hammill sound almost tame.

First Utterance mostly confused its few listeners after its release and after also receiving bad reviews in the music press, the album ended up selling only about 7 000 copies (well, many contemporary bands would kill for such sales figures!). As a result of the lack of commercial success, Comus broke up reasonably soon after the release of First Utterance.

Somewhat surprisingly, a few years later Richard Branson’s new record label Virgin showed an interest in Comus’ return and the band was re-formed with a slightly different line-up. Virgin’s To Keep You Crying, released in 1974, was stylistically far more commercial and by all accounts a lesser affair than its predecessor, though not a bad album by any stretch. If you can resist comparing it to First Utterance. To Keep From Crying was no more successful than its predecessor and was also such a disappointment artistically for Wootton that the band saw no chance of continuing.

Over the decades, First Utterance’s reputation and prestige grew little by little, and the cult favourite Comus finally made a return to the concert stage in 2008, at the invitation of the Swedish Mellotronen Festival. After that, the band toured somewhat irregularly and in 2012 released an EP with some great new songs called Out Of Coma. Unfortunately, this did not lead to a proper renaissance of the band and apart from a few gigs after the EP, there has been little news from the band. Hopefully Comus will wake up from their coma one more time.

Best songs: ’Diana’, ’Drip Drip’, ’Song To Comus’, ’The Bite’

Rating: ****½

Author: JANNE YLIRUUSI

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Tracks:

1. ”Diana” – 4:37 (Colin Pearson)
2. ”The Herald” – 12:15 (Andy Hellaby, Glen Goring, Roger Wootton)
3. ”Drip Drip” – 10:56 (Wootton)
4. ”Song to Comus” – 7:31 (Wootton)
5. ”The Bite” – 5:27 (Wootton)
6. ”Bitten” – 2:16 (Hellaby, Pearson)
7. ”The Prisoner” – 6:15 (Wootton)

Bändi:

Roger Wootton: acoustic guitar, vocals Glenn Goring: acoustic guitars, electric guitar, hand drums, backing vocals Andy Hellaby: bass, backing vocals Colin Pearson: violins Rob Young: flute, oboe, hand drums Bobbie Watson: vocals, percussion

Producer: Barry Murray

Label: Dawn

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