REVIEWS AND NOTES

This Maine based group contained the Leavitt brothers who had previously led the Cobras, and Ralph Mazzota from Lazy Smoke. Pedigree aside, this is a powerful and inventive psychedelic tinged heavy jammin' rock album that today still holds up as a great work. With its backwards bits and oddly-effected vocals, the album stands with one foot in the 60's and one in the 70's, with a heavy handed metallic attitude. Their cover of Gimme Some Lovin', only one of two covers on this album, does for it what Vanilla Fudge did for You Keep Me Hangin' On. Gary Leavitt, guitar and main songwriter, was killed in 1975, which effectively ended the band, who, after this sole album, remained a popular live attraction in the Northeast through 1974. The remix engineer for this album was Les Paul, Jr., son of Les Paul.

"Heavy Equipment" 1970 (Flying Dutchman ams-12005) [wlp exists]

Well-regarded psych/hard rock transition LP and undoubtedly one of the better LPs in that often disappointing genre. Obvious influences from the UK mod scene, covers two tracks from that era with fairly good results. Tight, pro-sounding affair with the token macho vocals a minus and a good modern-sounding drummer a plus. Not 100% up my alley, but respectworthy. Ralph Mazzola of Lazy Smoke plays guitar, while other members came from the Ones and the Cobras, making this a New England "supergroup" of sorts. [PL]
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It's understandable why this has become one of the most collectable hard rock albums of the period. A couple of ace songs on side one veer from the straightforward heavy sound towards a moodier psych sound, and the rest rock hard and true without succumbing to boring guitar solos or bluesy posturing. Great rhythm section--the bass playing on their cover of "Gimme Some Loving" is powerful and chill-inducing. [AM]

Reissue on CD of one and only album by this US heavy unit, formed from the ashes of garage band The Cobras and the legendary late '60's US psych band Lazy Smoke. Originally released in 1970 on Amsterdam Records (home of the Cyrkle's Minx soundtrack) the record is a killer late '60's acid psych rock album filled with backward effects, dark psychedelic songs and in your face acid guitar work. Anyone remotely interested in late '60's or early '70's US heavy psych will dig this heavy, effect laden gem.

Euclid's one and only album is among the very best of it's type, which is most certainly Heavy Rock at it's best. The musicians themselves were of an excellent caliber & very experienced, coming from a diverse New England Garage & Psych Rock background. Groups from which they haled prior included the noteworthy Psych tinged Garage act the Lazy Smoke as well as Garage rockers the Cobras. One of the coolest things about this album is the overall evidence of it's group members various background influence on it. In Euclid, you get the very best of it all. You have the raw & ferocious high energy Garage element mixed with a very clear and real Psychedelic conviction of the drug saturated times. These over shadowing characteristics combined with their new heavy/hard rock discipline & focus, resulted in one of the best early Heavy-Psyche Rock albums ever recorded in the United States. The combined member's various instrumental contributions are equally matched by their amazingly supportive crystalline vocal harmonies. The background vocal quality was quite effectively offset by the lead vocals "take no prisoners" brutal male vocal styling. The production on this record is absolutely top notch and can't help but to give the music it's deep unstoppable heavy forward momentum. Very much living up to the group's namesake, the guitar, bass & drums on this record, in typical earth moving fashion, musically command the attention of the listener & level any and all resistance in their path. The album itself stands to this day as a perfect monument of that which musically represents the US transition from Hard/Heavy Psych to Hard/Heavy Rock. In short, the group Euclid were one of the true "unsung" cornerstones that really helped to "pave" the way for the up and coming FM centered US Hard Rock movement. KILLER!

Euclid "Heavy Equipment" CD reissue of little known classic hard rock psychedelic record originally released on the Flying Dutchman label in 1970. Holy hell that first track is a real winner clocking in at over 11 minutes and blasting forth with real monster heavy riffs at the 3/4 way mark! The whole album is a pretty solid hard rocker too with loud drums, bass and guitars! This was something I had wanted to reissue myself someday, but it looks like someone beat me to it! One of these guys originally played with Beatles-psych legends Lazy Smoke (another classic you'll be able to find here pretty soon).