Fly Golden Eagle originally released Quartz as a 26-track, two-hour monster companion piece to cult classic motion picture The Holy Mountain. Now it’s been dissected and re-imagined as the 12-track Quartz Bijou and is a tighter and more concise album for it.
Opening with a wall of drums, organs and fuzzed out guitar ‘You Look Good To Me’ is reminiscent of Manfred Mann in 1969. A funky soul groove, with marginally esoteric lyrics. The music oozes out of the speakers while Ben Trimble’s vocals soar above everything like, well, a golden eagle. ‘Horse’s Mouth’ follows hot on the heels of ‘You Look Good To Me’. Like its predecessor it’s a psychedelic beast jammed full of throbbing bass, delicate guitar parts so tangled up you’d need a nit comb to straighten them out and an outro that rivals anything released post-1970. ‘Stepping Stone’ sounds like the Soledad Brothers covering T-Rex in the desert while tripping balls. The riffs are colossal and almost collapse under their own weight, the organ sounds like it was lifted from an Electric Prunes album and the bass pulsates. Somehow Trimble’s vocals manage not only be audible, but take centre stage in the song.
