McChurch Soundroom have been described as “Swiss Krautrock” but their sole album Delusion from 1971 consists of resoundingly of-its-era rock, rather than forward-looking or transcendental experimental music, so the term is – despite the involvement of producer Conny Plank – inaccurate as well as kind of stupid. Does that make the album bad? Well, no, not at all, depending on your taste for mildly exploratory bluesy-rock of the Jethro Tull/early Black Sabbath/Focus/Uriah Heep persuasion.
The opening, acoustic guitar-and-flute passage of the album’s title track “Delusion” is strikingly reminiscent of two of Black Sabbath’s more tranquil songs of the period, “Planet Caravan” from 1970’s Paranoid and, perhaps coincidentally, “Solitude” which appeared on Master of Reality in ’71, the same year that Delusion was released. Despite this initial similarity, which has something to do with Kurt Hafen’s very Geezer Butler-like bass playing, when the song breaks free and takes flight, it’s not into the monolithic heavy rock of Sabbath, but something nimbler and more jazzy. Reviewing by comparison can so easily devalue what a band does, but when singer/flautist/acoustic guitarist Sandro Chiesa sings, with easy panache, over the band’s elegant, possibly improvised rock the result sounds irresistibly like the early Uriah Heep of songs like “Walking in Your Shadow,” but crucially, there is no element of plagiarism. The point is, devotees of albums like …Very ‘Eavy …Very ‘Umble and its ilk are almost guaranteed to like “Delusion” and indeed Delusion as a whole.
See for more.
Delusion
Time Is Flying
Dream of a Drummer
What Are You Doin‘
Trouble, Pt. I
Trouble, Pt. II
Delusion 1971 full album