A Lot of Bottle 1971 Album

Climax Blues Band

A Lot of Bottle embodies all of the characteristics of great blues-rock records: sadness, anger, alienation, sarcasm, humor, and a certain unapproachability which was even felt through the most accessible material. Track lists differ depending on what version you have but there are some stone-cold biggies that have made it across the various versions over the years. "Reap What I've Sowed" is driven by yet another massive Haycock slide guitar riff while Derek Holt's vocal dedicated to money hungry hangers-on feels like it comes from the bottom of some faraway well, giving the track a very disjointed effect. But the real payoff is the solo section where everyone puts the hammer down like a ton of bricks and then some. This is blues-rock gone proto-punk. "Seventh Son" is the next tour de force, where Cooper's robotically cold vocal treatment has you convinced he could be at least a good candidate for the role, right? The second half features a long, progressive-ish coda that veers into King Crimson territory at times, even. The final epic is a cover of Muddy Waters' "Louisiana Blues", where they expertly draw out the mood of the original. In between there are shorter tracks which essentially are offshoots of these three main epics, and are all worth listening to at least once...but it does bring me to my one small beef with this album. It feels like there is a slight bit too much filler, and in reality, the record keys on the axis of these three mammoth tracks.