Groundhogs Thank Christ For The Bomb Album 1969
Liberty Cover Front	Sunset Cover Front
Liberty Gatefold Cover Middle
Liberty Cover Back	Sunset Cover Back

Produced:	McPhee
Engineer:	Unknown
Recording Dates:	Recorded During February 1970 at De Lane Lea Studios London
Artist details
Tony McPhee	Guitar / Vocals
Pete Cruickshank	Bass
Ken Pustelnik	Drums

Track Listing
track	Title	Composer	Time
1	Strange Town	McPhee	4:16
2	Darkness Is No Friend	McPhee	2:43
3	Soldier	McPhee	4:51
4	Thank Christ For The Bomb	McPhee	7:15
5	Ship On The Ocean	McPhee	3:27
6	Garden	McPhee	5:19
7	Status People	McPhee	3:32
8	Rich Man, Poor Man	McPhee	3:25
9	Eccentric Man	McPhee	4:53

Comments: Thank Christ for the bomb was the Third album for the Groundhogs. It reached No 9 in the U.K. charts, staying in the charts for 13 weeks. This album although passing a strong nod and a wink at the Groundhogs' Blues background moved heavily into the then emerging heavy rock idiom. Track one on the first side opens with Strange Town …..alienness of a community. A steady paced guitar led boogie with a ringing guitar solo. Darkness Is No Friend……alienness of a small room, track two opens with a guitar boogie riff leading the song straight into vocals. The strong boogie carries the song on with the bass and lead guitar driving the rhythm together. The lead guitar occasionally breaking through with small displays virtuoso. The theme of the song is turning a blind eye to moral issues that are wrong. A proposition that would reoccur frequently in McPhee's writing. Tracks three and four end the first side of the album and can be seen as a two part song. Soldier….alienness of a country brings the main trust of the album to the four. The hollowness and futility of war is tackled in this composition. The song start of with a steady pace providing the backing for the soap box like singing remonstrating the futility of the battle. The middle eight sees the musical composition of the song come to the fore. Lead guitar and bass start the solo with the two playing counter to each other. Peter's playing here shows his versatility on the bass and provides a perfect foil for the laid back guitar solo played behind the lead of the bass. Thank Christ For The Bomb… alienness takes us in with an acoustic strumming from Tony. His vocals echoing over the steady beat of the un-pretentious backing, as he tells the story of how the Great war lead after many futile losses of men into the Second World War. And how the war was ended in stale mate by the use of the atomic bomb in Japan. As the verses finishes, a musical journey is started. With a simple marching bass line, a simple beat on hi-hat cymbals joins in, as the journey extends lead guitar quietly follows echoing the bass line in a simple pattern with percussion slowly building. Breaking rank Tony's guitar makes a bold dash across the backing and heads out into the unknown on it's own. Startled, the bass and drums catch up as the frantic pace gathering momentum and tension. Peter's bass takes over the lead, while lead guitar follows behind, now wailing in the glory of feedback. Percussion by now splattering the sounds of destruction across the sound. Just as the crescendo reaches its zenith ,an abrupt silence shatters. The scream of the siren followed closely by two explosions, then … nothing. Emotions shattered side two opens with Ship On The Ocean A slow paced start with guitar echoing the bass's thundering chords. The song breaks into a fast paced boogie rhythm. The final solo is a wonderful piece of over-tracking. As the bass and guitar follow the boogie beat on a lead guitar sings out stridently, swooping and diving up and down the neck of the guitar the lead guitar flies at great speed, ringing the notes out. Ending with the lead guitar echoing the start of the song crashing chords over the bass and a searing feedback. Track two on the second side Garden slows the pace. A treaty on how modern life has destroyed the beauty of nature, driving out the animals. Again over dubbing allows Tony to take his guitar solos to new vistas. The Lead guitar countered by screeching feedback and foiled by crashing chords. Status People track three sees a simple bass melody taken up quietly by a restrained guitar as percussion builds a double tracked guitar adds to the energy finally sanctioning a third guitar to smash into the melody with strident chords as the vocals fight for position. As the verse ends, the melee of instruments returns to the beginning to build up for a second verse. This time ending in a slow fade as instruments pull out leaving the percussion to drift away into the void. Rich Man Poor Man progresses with a confident lead guitar stealing out the rhythm with bass Joining in. Heavily distorted guitars and feed back are the hallmark on the lead solos here. The ultimate track Eccentric Man …. The story of a man who lived in Chelsea all his life; first in a mansion then on the benches of the embankment. Plods in with both bass and guitar pounding out the underpinning riff lines. Tony cries out the story of the eccentric man. The bass beefed right up as it almost pounds out of the speakers while the lead guitar swapping from heavy distortion to screeching wails out behind the hypnotic bass lines. A fitting end to a memorable album of songs. The Album was recorded at De Lane Lea Studios, London in February 1970 eight months after Tony had laid the ghost of Blues to rest with Blues obituary. On this album Tony's writing and producing skills are honed to a precision not met by his long apprenticeship so far. The album is a veritable foray into the now developed heavy metal style. Only one other guitarist, Jimi Hendrix was in the same league. Although most of the songs are still around the standard three minute length. Thank Christ shows that the developing composing skills where not confined to this constraint. The seven and a quarter minute song ends with a four minute twenty second instrumental finale. The rock opera and pretentious, over long songs of other rock groups, never quite entering into Tony's composition vocabulary. The virtuoso of his playing adequately shines in the four/five minute format. Also re-issued as a four CD set Four Originals