Review: Vinyl Reissue of Dantalian's Chariot's 'Chariot Rising'

Zoot Money's Big Roll band is one of those group's you read about a bit if you're into sixties British rock, but outside of the ephemeral live scene, their biggest contribution to rock was a certain young guitar-whiz named Andy Summers. Their music was fairly generic big-band British soul and blues in the vein of Manfred Mann, although Money's mildly hoarse soul shout was full of personality and Summers, of course, is no slouch when wielding an axe. 

When the psychedelic age crept in and the Big Roll began to revolve and evolve, you wouldn't be misguided to assume that they might have transformed into something semi-desperate and dated, a la Eric Burdon's Animals, but as Dantalian's Chariot, Money, Summers, bassist Pat Donaldson, and drummer Colin Allen actually came into their own. Unfortunately, barely anyone was aware of this during the Chariot's lifetime, when they only managed to release one outstanding 45 rpm psychedelic nugget, "Madman Running Through the Fields" b/w "Sun Came Bursting Through My Cloud", before their psychedelia-averse record label, Direction, mucked with the band's direction to the point that Summers went off to join Soft Machine and Money ended up with Burdon's goofy psych version of The Animals.

That's a shame, because the Dantalian's Chariot album would have been fab, with the disorienting but deliriously tuneful "Madman Running Through the Fields" leading a neat run of songs like the pretty B-side "Sun Came Bursting", the searing "World War Three", the warm pub singalong "Recapture the Thrill", and the trippy Chocolate Watchband-esque instrumental "This Island" (featuring Andy on sitar!). Only "High Flyin' Bird", an embarrassing hippie paean worthy of The Animals circa-'67, isn't up to snuff. 

Aside from the aforementioned single and a few songs that escaped onto an album of mostly older recordings Direction released as a Zoot solo album in '68, the fruits of Dantalian's 1967 sessions remained unavailable until 1995 when the teensy UK label Tenth Planet released them on vinyl as Chariot Rising. Since then, the record has only been released twice more, and both times in Spain: first in 2013 by Wah Wah Records and now by Guerssen.  

This new pressing by Guerssen features the recordings in remastered mono with nice detail and strong bass and only a bit of occasional sibilance to disrupt the sound. The vinyl is flat and quiet and the package includes a liner-notes insert and postcard eulogizing Money, who we lost a couple of months ago.