Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Artist: Shiver, The
Label: Maris Musik
Release: 1969
Length: 34:25
Rating: 3/5
According to legend in German-speaking regions, Walpurgis Night is the time when witches hold their revels and the dead rise from their graves. Plenty of poets from the Romantic era knew such legends, including our own dr. France Prešeren, who polished Zois’s translation of Bürger’s gloomy epic ballad Lenore, itself inspired by Walpurgis Night. On that very same day, the feast of St. Walpurga, the notorious American Satanist Anton LaVey founded his church in 1966. All of this surely inspired the extremely obscure Swiss prog rock band The Shiver, who released just one studio album in their career, »Walpurgis«, and who remain known, among the few prog fans who even know this record exists, mainly for two things.
First, they shocked the music crowd and critics of the day with a sexually explicit cover, the first of its kind from the legendary Swiss graphic artist H.R. Giger, sadly no longer with us, the man best known for creating the sci-fi monster Xenomorph from the ‘Alien’ film series and for contributing the cover of the Emerson, Lake & Palmer classic »Brain Salad Surgery« (1973). Giger’s erotically spiced cover, which bordered on pornography and was undoubtedly quite provocative for its time, kept the unknown Swiss proto-prog band from St. Gallen from breaking into the American market right from the start, and in other countries too hardly anyone even heard that »Walpurgis« came out. Today it remains a cult collector’s item for every prog connoisseur, even though its musical content is nowhere near as fascinating as you might think. These days the »Walpurgis« cover doesn’t look all that shocking anymore, and it reminds you more than anything of the grotesque form of some bizarre genetic experiment that just escaped from the lab in the popular ‘Resident Evil’ series of video games and films.
The second thing, far more important to fans of obscure early prog gems and tied to the actual music on »Walpurgis«, was the excellent cover of the Procol Harum classic »Repent Walpurgis«, which, somewhat ironically, is by far the best track on the whole album, one where The Shiver build a dark, intense atmosphere and show off all their arranging and improvisational potential. This phenomenal symphonic prog instrumental, ruled by sprawling layers of Hammond organ and melancholic piano variations from keyboardist Jelly Pastorini, plus dramatic guitar solos from guitarist/vocalist Danny Ruehle, was almost on the same level of quality as the Procol Harum original, except that under The Shiver’s baton it came out even darker. On their only record before breaking up, The Shiver swore by an eclectic mix of symphonic rock, psychedelic rock and blues rock. Of comparable bands, they remind you most of Procol Harum for the rest of the album too. The vocals of English singer Peter Robinson were of course nowhere near Gary Brooker’s, but under the circumstances they were perfectly decent, especially with the support of some quality backing harmonies.
Sadly, the remaining tracks on the album, though none of them is truly bad, never come close to the quality of this early symphonic prog masterpiece, and most of them have sunk into oblivion, and deservedly so. »Ode To Salvation Army« is an instrumental improvisation less than a minute long. »Leave This Man Alone«, a decent but not exactly thrilling cover of The Moody Blues standard, is in The Shiver’s hands a cross between blues and psychedelic rock, and its dramatic multi-part harmonies foreshadow what Uriah Heep would soon do far better. »What’s Wrong With The Blues«, where all there is to admire is Pastorini’s excellent Hammond playing, is a thoroughly generic blues rocker that sounds seriously dated today. It was uninteresting even when it came out, with the British blues rock invasion more or less over by then.
The rest of the album doesn’t pass the test of time well either. That goes for the dark psychedelic experiment »Hey Mr. Holy Man«, which features melancholic Hammond arrangements and choral, almost sacred-sounding harmonies, but which at least fits the gloomy nature of most of the songs on »Walpurgis«. »Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood« is a solid but pretty pointless cover of The Animals standard, which points to a lack of their own songwriting ideas in an era when originality and adventurousness were everything.
»No Time« is a generic psychedelic rocker that, with its melodic, multi-part chorus backed by shimmering layers of Hammond organ, might even have had hit potential had it come out two years earlier, when the psychedelic scene was at its peak. The album closes with »The Peddle«, yet another not-in-the-least impressive and instantly forgettable blues rocker, where even a ton of guitar and piano improvisation isn’t enough to make the band come off as anything more than a second-rate version of Cream.
»Walpurgis« earned its cult status mainly thanks to the excellent cover »Repent Walpurgis«, the unique cover art, and the extreme obscurity of an undoubtedly talented Swiss band that had plenty of untapped reserves in it. »Walpurgis« was a valuable achievement for Swiss proto-prog, but as a whole it’s a thoroughly average album, and its lack of adventurousness has made it age poorly. After The Shiver broke up, Ruehle and Pastorini formed the short-lived group Deaf. Later, Ruehle created Island, also short-lived, but one of the most highly regarded Swiss dark prog rock acts.
Line-up
Peter Robinson – vocals
Danny Ruehle – guitar, harmonica
Jelly Pastorini – keyboards
Mario Conza – bass guitar, flute
Roge Maurer – drums
Production
Peter Hochstrasser
Track list
1. Repent Walpurgis (7:10)
2. Ode to the Salvation Army (0:38)
3. Leave This Man Alone (5:15)
4. What’s Wrong With The Blues (5:15)
5. Hey Mr. Holy Man (3:15)
6. Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood (4:40)
7. No Time (2:50)
8. The Peddle (4:45)
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