High Tide-She Shanties (1969)

Towards the end of the sixties, proto-metal found a niche amidst the pop brilliance of The Beatles, the acoustic sounds of folk, psychedelic rock, and the standards of a musical philosophy that was beginning its sudden dissolution of the established rules. Suddenly, some music became darker, sharper, denser, breaking the mold, and at the same time, music became a dangerous weapon for those who established those rules. Taking the psychedelia of The Doors, but replacing the dominant organ in their sound with the violin, searing guitars, and a schizophrenic voice in the purest Jim Morrison style, High Tides were ahead of their time with a rock sound as heavy as it was powerful on their first and legendary album, "She Shanties" (1969), an absolute classic of psychedelia and dark proto-metal, laden with progressive sounds. With this album, High Tide unleashed a brutal cacophony, beginning with the dense metaphor of "Futilist Lament". The furious guitars become devastatingly heavy in a maelstrom where the violin sounds so sharp it almost cuts off your breath. "Death Warmed Up" follows the same path, while time seems to stand still in "Pushed, But Not Forgotten", offering a respite from this sonic chaos. "Walking Down Their Outlook" evokes the psychedelic sounds of Jim Morrison and his band, leading into the epic "Missing Out", with its distorted melody of bass, guitar, and violin, and "Dilemma", which closes the album with accelerated violin sounds, raw guitars, and a visceral rhythm that leads into more progressive sounds. "She Shanties" is not an album for everyone, only for those who are fans of the hardest psychedelic, mixed with powerful, dark, dense and distorted guitar and violin riffs with blues and progressive metal.