Since a lot of people thought Mountain was the logical extension of Cream's psych-power trio sound, then once the band broke up, why not reach out to Cream's lead singer and keep the spirit of the thing moving? The recording industry thought the same thing, throwing gobs of money at them until finally they came to terms. But the project turned out to be a disaster, mainly because there was too much money, time, and drugs around, and quickly the drugs became the big focus - at least according to the few things I have read about this period, as Laing has been fairly outspoken about it. As far as the debut album goes, it comes off like a step brother compared to even the Mountain albums which came before it, never mind the Cream ones. They pooled their resources together, and came up with an interesting grab bag of styles, along with flashes of directions as to where this could go, but nothing more. You expect more from musicians with these kind of pedigrees and strong personalities. Part of the reason why this fell a bit flat for me is that I half-expected Jack Bruce to step into the Felix Pappalardi role which he doesn't really do here. West has the bare majority of vocals on the album, including the lighter tracks, which is a surprise, and he does a good job. The heavier tracks and blues ballads are really by-the-boards, though. They are not bad, but I feel like for such a hyped trio like this, there should more than just empty energy with these songs. Plus, they do not seem to be about anything substantive. The better works are what I like to call "Mountain gone pop" but these moments are few and far between. For example, the very last track is "Pollution Woman", a thoroughly weird track ripped from the Pappalardi playbook but also quite catchy, which proved that West had not forgotten a thing from his time in Mountain. "Out in the Fields" is a fairly nice ballad as well, in the same ballpark as described above, where Jack Bruce makes a nice contribution playing piano and harmonium, of all things. Just something to provide a nice contrast for the rest of the album. Overall, this is an interesting sidebar to the Mountain saga, and should probably be heard a few times, but certainly, these guys were not going full blast in this partnership, at least not in the studio.
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