Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Artist: Klaatu
Label: Import
Released: 1976
Running time: 41:52
Rating: 4/5
“3:47 EST” is the debut of the cult Canadian progressive rock band Klaatu. This up-and-coming Canadian trio, who spent most of their career nursing a full-blown obsession with science fiction (their name comes from the famous sci-fi story The Day the Earth Stood Still, in which an alien called Klaatu plays the lead) and boasted a string of ethereal melodies, were probably the most enigmatic rock outfit of the late seventies. When they hit the scene with “3:47 EST”, rumors started spreading left and right that this was really a side project of a secretly reunited The Beatles, which brought them unexpected sales success in the US, where the album came out under the title “Klaatu”.
The main reason for such wild outbursts of excitement over unverified info is that the “3:47 EST” sleeve listed no band members, and that most of the songs on the album sounded uncannily close to the Beatles’ psychedelic rock of the “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and “Magical Mystery Tour” era. Add dreamy vocal harmonies, plenty of orchestral arrangements, special sound effects, electric sitar, eccentric lyrics with a heap of English black humor, and the parallels with the Liverpool four pretty much draw themselves. Klaatu’s musical style would be hard to pigeonhole, since the songs split between symphonic rock epics, psychedelic mantras and hard rock charges, and for the most part they blow past genre boundaries. I wouldn’t go far wrong calling their music art pop rock heavily inspired by the legendary Fab Four.
Some people would wrinkle their noses at all this and ask how much sonic originality a band can really have when people were mass-mistaking them for the Beatles from day one. But the moment you dig into the structure and arrangements of most of the songs on “3:47 EST”, you realize there are far more differences than similarities, and that Klaatu had a whole bag of interesting experimental tricks and completely original sonic motifs up their sleeve. The mysterious trio, who later turned out to be keyboardist, bassist and vocalist John Woloschuk, guitarist and vocalist Dee Long and drummer Terry Draper, picked up on “3:47” where the Beatles left off after “Abbey Road”. They added gallons of mysticism via mighty symphonic arrangements, sprinkled in a pinch of folk here and there, and tossed in a little hard rock for the occasional return to solid ground. On their own, these three musicians were never technical virtuosos on their instruments, but as a collective they formed an incredible cohesion that could conjure up an unforgettable atmosphere.
That shows best on the opening space rock epic “Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft”, which I can declare without hesitation to be both their best-known and their best creation. The inspiration for this ethereal classic came from a real event described in the book The Flying Saucer Reader. In March 1953, an organization called the International Flying Saucer Bureau sent its members flyers inviting them to take part in an experiment called World Contact Day. On a set day and hour, participants were supposed to send a collective telepathic message to visitors from other planets. The message began with the words…”we are calling occupants of interplanetary craft!” The exact date of the message was March 15, 1953. As for what the final effect of this experiment was, or whether anybody “out there” heard it, well, you could argue about that all day. Either way, sci-fi cheesiness aside, the central symphonic arrangement on the mellotron, laid inside the ethereal melody, together with the magical chorus is pure fairy tale, the kind that sends shivers down your whole body. Woloschuk’s vocal hangs somewhere on the line between Lennon and McCartney the entire time. This majestic epic doesn’t skimp on sound effects, time shifts, pompous orchestral arrangements and vocal distortions, yet it keeps a gorgeous, magically seductive chorus throughout, one that makes it easy to drift off wondering what would have happened if the contact had worked. As proof of just what kind of “aliens” Klaatu were, I’ll add that they created this classic precisely so it could one day be used for first contact with extraterrestrial intelligence! Spielberg made his film classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind just a year after this album came out. “Calling Occupants…” is without doubt the song that marks their greatest achievement, but also their biggest curse, since most of their later work often stayed in the shadow of this evergreen standard. The cover by the pop group The Carpenters from 1977 had even bigger commercial success, and most listeners still know that one today, while the original sadly gets forgotten all too often.
After an opener this good, it’s no surprise the other compositions on the album are less interesting, though each one is appealing in its own way. Klaatu continue their Beatles fixation on the psychedelic-pastoral pop rocker “California Jam”, which features plenty of Beatles-style vocal harmonies, acoustic guitar passages and a simple rhythm. On the hard-rocking “Anus of Uranus”, greased by a boogie rhythm and backed by cowboy-drunk guitar licks, they prove they can be proper dirty dogs from time to time. The melodic rock “Sub-Rosa Subway” really sounds like some lost The Beatles track, with loads of ethereal harmonies, mighty orchestral arrangements and a philosophical lyric. Its structure has quite a bit in common with the The Beatles classic “Blackbird”. The rather average hard rocker “True Life Hero”, with its crushing guitar riff and bouncy rhythms, on the other hand has nothing in common with the Liverpool giants. The psychedelic burlesque “Doctor Marvello” is a much more interesting affair, with ethereal waves of electric sitar and some pompous orchestral arrangements that even Rick Wakeman wouldn’t be ashamed of.
“Sir Bodsworth Rugglesby III” is an eccentric humoresque with classic British black humor à la Benny Hill and a melody that sounds like it was played by a military band at the end of World War II. It inevitably raises the question of where three Canadians got their sense for that kind of humor. The closing space rock epic “Little Neutrino” is, in its sonic adventuring, the closest thing to the opening classic. It’s actually the most experimental piece on the album, and as such the most interesting for any prog rock fan. This time they ran all the vocal harmonies through vocoders, probably to mimic aliens calling in, while pushing mighty orchestral arrangements and plenty of sound effects into the background. In between, they also dropped in some pastoral ornaments in all the right places, which successfully keep the melodic structure intact. They wrapped the whole thing up with the sounds of thunder and a mouse squeak. Ah, that Canadian eccentricity.
Today nobody could mistake “3:47 EST” for a lost project of a secretly reunited Beatles, since the big mystery around the band members’ names was cleared up a few years after its release, not to mention the album’s overall sound and lyrical side, since the big four were nowhere near as hooked on interplanetary travel. With “3:47 EST”, Klaatu made a very good debut, in fact one of their two best albums, and what wins you over most are the ethereal orchestral arrangements, the gorgeous pastoral melodies and the Beatles-style vocals. The album doesn’t hit the brilliance of the opening classic from there on, but it still offers enough variety to easily win over a wider circle of listeners, who don’t necessarily have to be die-hard Beatles fans. On it we can find a pretty good answer to how the Beatles might have sounded had they carried their career into the seventies, while Klaatu constantly use completely their own tricks to build individual, wildly catchy motifs with which they try to make first contact.
Lineup
John Woloschuk – bass guitar, keyboards, guitar, vocals
Dee Long – guitar, bass guitar, vocals
Terry Draper – drums, percussion, trombone, vocals
Production
Terry Brown
Track list
1. Calling Occupants (Of Interplanetary Craft)
2. California Jam
3. Anus of Uranus
4. Sub-Rosa Subway
5. True Life Hero
6. Doctor Marvello
7. Sir Bodsworth Rugglesby III
8. Little Neutrino
