Groundhogs: Thank Christ for the Bomb Gold Vinyl

Why you'll love it

This Fire Records edition is a limited run of 500 on gold vinyl in a gatefold sleeve, with a postcard carrying a download code for the album and five bonus tracks. Thank Christ for the Bomb entered the Melody Maker album chart in June 1970.

This edition

Gold vinyl
Limited to 500 copies
Gatefold jacket
Postcard with download code
Five bonus download tracks
Stereo mix

About the album

The Groundhogs started out as a British blues band, but by 1970 guitarist and singer Tony McPhee wanted something heavier and stranger. Their third album, which he wrote from start to finish, is a concept record twice over.

Side one deals with what McPhee called alienness, from "Strange Town" and "Darkness Is No Friend" to the long, grinding title track. Side two tells the story of a man who lived in Chelsea all his life, first in a mansion and then on the benches of the Embankment, through "Ship on the Ocean," "Garden," "Status People" and "Eccentric Man." Peter Cruickshank on bass and Ken Pustelnik on drums hit hard, giving the trio a sound far bigger than three people should be able to make, and Martin Birch, who had worked with Deep Purple and Fleetwood Mac, engineered it.

The bonus downloads include Radio 1 sessions and live versions from Leeds, with a fifteen-minute "Soldier" among them. A man going from a Chelsea mansion to a park bench in one side of vinyl is, frankly, quicker than most of us manage with a property ladder.

Also at Kops: more The Groundhogs on vinyl · browse Rock